Ephémère
by katiekatebishop
Summary: "Extract the eternal from the ephemeral." - Charles Baudelaire / Random moments in Sam's and Danny's lives.
1. Nonsense And Babbling

She's small, so ridiculously small but she holds such a presence when she enters a room, when she strides across the casino flood, when she walks past him.

Danny wonders if she knows he likes having her around.

He finds her a little loud, a little proud for a such a tiny person but whenever she is around she smells like fierceness and boldness, and he is sure he could watch her all day long.

He does not know how to describe Sam's face. How to describe the pieces of her that makes him click, that makes him smile and feel warm all inside.

Sometimes he looks at her and really sees her, _the whole of her_ , when she thinks that nobody is watching her, that nobody is seeing her. She looks like the prettiest mystery in the world, like the brightest star that nobody could reach. Sam became his favourite person so fast and she doesn't even know that.

He knows she is one of those things that don't stay, that go away, the things that leave. She's _ephemeral,_ she's brutal but he thinks if he tells her that he enjoys her presence, her essence, she would stay and become _eternal_.

He really does like having her around. So he tells her so.

"I like having you around."

She frowns because this is so random and awkward and she's not certain to understand the nonsense he's babbling.

Sam thinks Danny is way soft, too nice, too perfect. She could eat him alive and then she would step on his heart and burn all the ugly pieces that may scratch her skin and leave marks on her forever. "Excuse me?"

"I like having you around," he repeats, the smile on his face is even bigger.

There's a twinkle in his eyes but his expression is genuine. Sam doesn't handle kindness very well. She was never taught to.

"You're almost sweet," she says instead. Because she can spit truth the same way knives can hurt. "You're mostly weird though."

But Danny isn't offended. His smile grows into a laugh, the wrinkles at the corner of his eyes making the colour of his eyes seem lighter, brighter.

"Gee, thanks, Sam."

And she can help but let her lips curve up a little bit.

Maybe it is all of her strangeness, her coldness, her always feeling like an outsider, but suddenly she is raising on her toes to brush a kiss, light and _éphémère_ at the corner of his mouth.

"Hm, I—does that mean you like having me around too?" Danny asks tentatively and the smirk on her face says everything.

Then she steps back, turns around and she leaves him there, face all flushed and mouth half open.

She never answered the question.


	2. The Perfume Of Truth

It was Nessa who told her, in between two whales and a few phone calls.

She remembers the exact words she pronounced: it's crazy how Danny keeps looking at you, Sam.

She did not pay much attention at the time, but she put the secret in a small corner of her mind, where nothing goes out. But today, she can't stop thinking about it—about _him_ —because she sees him everywhere.

It's stupid, really.

Because Danny is like glue. His smile and his good mood stick on her skin, under her skin, and even if she closes her eyes, she can still feel him sometimes.

She hates it, hates _him_ , she thinks.

But then, he throws a soft "Hey!" and an even softer "Sorry, Sam!" for running into her, and _then_ his hand lightly, _intimately_ brushes with the small of her back and she doesn't have time to yell at him for bumping into her that he's already gone.

But the smell of his perfume is still here though, and Sam swears under her breath because she doesn't hate him that much actually.


	3. Love Is As Ugly As The Tears Are Sad

It's way past three in the morning, the casino is at its quietest and the moon is big and bright above Vegas.

Sleep is calling her but Danny has his feet inside the pool, a glass of wine by his side and he looks like the saddest, loneliest person out there. So she steps out and sits next to him. Their shoulders are almost touching. _Almost_.

"Hey."

"Hey," says Danny back. He even turns a little to smile at her like he always does but there's no twinkle in his eyes, no happiness, and suddenly he looks so much older than he is and Sam realises he has never seen him look so down and cold.

"What's up?" she asks and she looks away. She learned that it's easier to talk when nobody looks at you because you can pretend to be all alone in the world, and that nothing can hurt you, that nothing can break you. It's a pretty lie and she has lived by it her whole life.

"It's the anniversary of my mom's death today. I have trouble sleeping whenever the date comes up so here I am, waiting for the day that has barely started to finish so I can be Danny McCoy again and leave the s _ad boy that is not over his mom's death_ in the box I keep locked up 364 days per year."

Sam doesn't know what to say, doesn't know how to comfort him. She grew up learning how to _hurt_ , not how to _fix,_ so she just leans onto him because actions speak louder than words. Now their shoulders are touching— _they_ are touching and Sam knows Danny appreciates the gesture because his lips find the top of her head and she feels him breath her scent in.

"I'm sorry about your mom, Danny."

His breath hitches and his body shakes, so she grabs his hand and holds it tight. "You know, it was—it was difficult losing her because she—I—"

"—Because you didn't lose her all at once," she says in a tone that indicates she understands him, somehow. "It happened gradually. She wasn't there for breakfast anymore. She wasn't there to kiss you goodnight anymore. You could no longer smell her scent from the pillows. You could no longer feel her hugs. You could no longer hear her voice so you forgot how she sounded when she said ' _Danny_ ', or ' _I miss you'_ or ' _I love you_ ' and now every year you realise that she is gone forever and it just… _hurts_ ," Sam's voice is as light as a whisper, as light as a caress but the truth behind her every word is piercing his heart."It sucks because it's the little things that mean the most to us that also have the capacity to hurt us the most."

And it's when she stops talking that she sees how intensely Danny is looking at her. He has tiny, soft tears at the corner of his eyes and they're glistening, reflecting the moon above them and Sam doesn't understand how things so little and so sad as tears can shine so brightly in the darkness of the night.

"Have you lost someone you loved?"

She chuckles because she does not lose. She leaves before it even happens. But she remembers being little and thinking her dad was dead. Even if he was breathing and his heartbeat was still there, she still thought he was dead.

"My dad died years before he stopped breathing," she explains. "See: love killed him. It's stupid. He loved my mom so much but she was just so cold. In some twisted way, he thought— _stupidly_ thought that his warmth could be enough for both of them, that he could melt the coldness away from her heart. But one day, he finally realised she never loved him—not the way he wanted her to—and he lost all his colours and became grey and tern and lifeless. My dad became a sad, sad man, and the essence that made him _him_ died. So in way, he was dead way before he was dumped six feet under the ground. Love sucked the life out of him and it was ugly to watch. Love is ugly," she concludes in a flat tone she mastered over the years.

Sadness is trying to claw its nails in her throat but she tamed the sadness long ago so she clears it away, blinks a little and it's gone.

"I'm sorry, Sam. But thanks for telling me," Danny's voice is as warm as the arm he wraps around her. He is always warm, she notices.

"I could come with you, if you want."

"Where to?"

She hesitates an instant. Then repeats. "I could come with you. To see your mom's grave. I could come with you, later today, if you like so that you won't be alone."

She's not sure what possessed her to say that but the smile on his face is all she needs to know she was right to ask because his tears are bright with sadness but also with gratitude now and she feels good. Then he hugs her, holds her tight against his chest, and she feels content.

"Thank you," he whispers in her ear and right here, in Danny's arms, she feels like she could never be sad again.


	4. Chocolate Is A Synonym For Happiness

"What's wrong?" is the first thing he asks, because Sam is by the elevators, a bunch of flowers in her hands and her eyes full of tears and that itself is a disturbing sight he's not used to witness. He doesn't like seeing her crying, he decides.

"My whale gave me roses," she sniffles like kids do after they fell down and need their mom's attention. Her nose is as red as an apple, he notices.

He has noticed plenty of things about her, like the way she takes her coffee or the way she holds her pen. The way she takes her hair out of her face, or the way she smiles for real when she looks at him.

"And?"

"And he told me: _'There's as many roses as the numbers of days I spent here at the Montecito with the most beautiful creature ever created. Six roses symbolising the six most beautiful days I've ever had. Thank you, Ms Samantha Marquez.'_ ," she quotes as she wipes away the tears.

Danny's hand reaches up and soon he's thumbing away the tears, and she lets him. It's invading, it's intimate, but he doesn't care because her lips are trembling and she doesn't stop crying and he doesn't know what to do except from chasing away the tears.

"That's why you're crying then, because he declared his love for you? Samantha Jane Marquez, a _Romantic,_ who would have thought?" he jokes but the idea of someone wooing her is strange. He doesn't know why, he doesn't want to understand why, he just finds it strange, doesn't like it even.

Sam pauses to look at him like he has no brain, then she rolls her eyes so hard that her tears stream down her cheeks. "This was the cheesiest and dumbest shit I've _ever_ heard, Danny, and I've seen and heard my fair share of cheesy and dumb whales!"

He blinks, confused, his fingers still on Sam's cheeks."...But you're crying?"

"I have _allergies!_ " she snaps but her voice has turned hoarse so it cracks a little in between words and Danny realises that she is actually really allergic to those flowers because she looks like a mess, a pretty mess, but a mess nonetheless, with her wet eyes and red nose.

She presses the bunch of flowers to his chest. "Get this thing away from me! My eyes and nose are burning and I can feel a headache growing up. I swear I don't deserve this. I've been nice today."

* * *

The headache is so intense that Sam only realises she's right in front of her suite when Danny opens the door for her.

"So flowers are fatal to you," he says as he leads her into the room. She doesn't tell him to leave so he supposes she doesn't mind him staying. "So this leads me to wonder; what is the true way to Ms Marquez's heart?

"Aside from alcohol, you mean?" she lets herself fall onto her bed. The coldness is expected, welcome even, because she always forgets to switch off the air con but she doesn't feel cold, not really, because Danny is sat close by and she swears she can feel his warmth even in the coldness surrounding her. "I have a sweet tooth," she admits as she closes her eyes. The headache is getting worse, she can even feel it behind her eyelids.

"Chocolate?" he guesses.

His hand finds her hair and he slowly starts massaging her scalp. Sam sighs appreciatively.

"M&M's," she breathes and she feels sleep coming up, threatening to ruin everything but Danny doesn't stop and she is content, happy even: here and now, in the heaviness of the sleep, in the stillness of the room. If she could choose to remain somewhere, with no escape, she would choose to be stuck in this moment forever, with Danny.

He laughs. "M&M's? My favourites. I'll share my stash with you. Just don't tell Mike, okay? Otherwise he'll be jealous. He's very sensitive, you know."

"I promise I won't tell on you," she smiles and Danny knows she'll sell him out on the first occasion and the thought makes him laugh a little. He sees her smile slowly drop from her lips and soon, she doesn't move anymore and the change in her breathing indicates that sleep finally caught her .

Sam is already far gone in the land of dreams when he takes off her shoes and puts the blankets safely around her. Then, he puts a glass of water and some pills on the table by her bed. Before leaving, he drops a kiss on her forehead, and walks out of her suite, his stomach feeling as heavy as his heart in his throat.

Sam, he realises, he likes her a bit too much.


	5. Get Attached And I'll Break Your Heart

"I'm not staying."

Her words explode all around him and the bird he has in his stomach whenever she's near him trembles a little, because he knows she's not talking about leaving the night club. She is talking about another kind of leaving, the kind you don't come back from.

"You're… leaving?" he asks, uncertain, his eyes searching hers.

She refuses to meet his eyes because Sam has learned that a look could change everything, could ruin anything. A twinkle, a softness in the eyes, and her entire world could shatter open, and show how fragile, how tiny she feels in this big, big world.

"I'm here right now. And I will be there tomorrow because it's not the time yet, but eventually I _will_ leave. I'm the kind of person that leaves."

Her glass is almost empty but it doesn't stop her from drinking it up in one go. The wine tastes disgusting but the burning in her throat helps her ignore how tensed Danny is besides her.

Danny knows she's one of those things that leaves because she told him, warned him that she _would_. But she's been there for a few weeks already, she likes it here, he knows she does. Because she has touched people here, she has marked them, letting tiny bits of her with them. And if she runs away, she'll leave behind her too many pieces of her. All she'll have left will be an empty shell and she'll be alone and _he_ couldn't have that. _She_ didn't deserve that.

"My time at the Montecito is running out, Danny."

"I know."

"I'll be around though. I mean, I'm staying in Vegas…just not at the Montecito."

"I know," that's all he says. There are so many things he'd like to tell her right now but she always makes him speechless and breathless at the worst time so he remains silent and the conversation dies out.

He takes the time to watch the moving lights, to observe how they dance across Sam's face, how they make her look different, infinite, _inaccessible_. Danny feels that at this exact moment, if he tries to reach her, his hand would meet with nothing and she would disappear, dissolve right in front of him. "Why are you telling me that, Sam? Why now?"

"Because you're getting attached," she says as if it is the most obvious thing in the world, as if it makes all difference in the world.

And now she's looking at him and Danny swallows because she's telling the truth and it's _not_ a bad thing but she's saying it like _it is_ and suddenly he hates her a little because she has no right to make him feel bad for being attached to her. She has no right to make him feel bad for liking her.

He just adores her.

She's such an amazing human being even if she never truly believes it unless the words come from her own mouth.

"I'm not getting attached."

"Really?"

He's really _not_ getting attached, he _is_ already attached. Danny's tied to her so so tight that if Sam leaves right now, she'd leave him hurt, open and bleeding.

However, he dodges her question nonetheless. "You don't want me to get attached?"

"No."

"Why?"

Even in the slight darkness of the room, he can see her eyelashes quiver, he perceives the hesitation in her stance, but then it's gone and she looks like she doesn't care much—like she only know coldness and loneliness. "Because I'll leave and it'll break your heart."

"I'm a tough guy, sweetheart."

"Whatever you say, Pretty Boy McCoy," her smirk is fake and then she tilts her head to the side to analyse him, to fit the perfect image of him in her mind, to carve it in the heart she swears she doesn't have.

"Whatever you say, Pretty Girl Marquez," his tone is as playful as his smile is genuine, unlike hers. Then he puts his arm around her and brings her form closer to him. She smells nice but her skin feels cold. He's always running warm, so in a twisted way, they match. "Not worried I'll break your heart, honey?" he asks in a whisper and he swears he heard her breath hitches.

"Nobody breaks my heart," she claims and Danny chooses not to comment on her lie. "Just don't get attached, alright?"

"...Alright," he agrees as he kisses the top of her head and lets her go when she decides to leave the party abruptly.


	6. Sunny day, M&M's And Confession

"Blue, please?" Danny says, holding his hand out.

Sam digs through the pack of M&M's and hands him a blue one. "You do know they all taste the same, right? Blue, yellow, green… The taste won't change even if the colour does."

They're both stretched out on the sun lungers beneath the hot and luminous sun of Vegas. It's a perfect day, Danny decides, because Sam has no whale to take care, he has no thief to run after, and the weather is simply magnificent.

"If you use your imagination, it can have any taste you want," he sounds so serious, even with his weird sun glasses and the extra suncream on his face that makes him look absolutely ridiculous. _I have a very sensitive skin_ he said when Sam made fun of him for it. "Really! All you have to do is close your eyes and imagine a flavour. It'll make your M &M's more special. Just do it, Sam."

He turns on his side and grabs the pack from her hands. He picks a red one as he waits for her to lay back down and closes her eyes. She raises an eyebrow at him, then decides to humour him by letting herself fall back onto the lunger. He's always making her do silly things, and the worst part is she likes doing them, but she won't ever be caught admitting it.

"Open up," Danny orders and Sam does as he says. He lets the ball of chocolate slide into her lips.

He watches her, drinks her in. The movements of her mouth, the colour of her lips, he wants to remember everything about her, every bit of her. He finds the beauty spot at the corner of her mouth rather kissable.

He looks away and clears his throat. "So what did your special M&M's taste like?"

Her eyelids open and she locks eyes with him. Then a devious smirk grasps her lovely lips and she leans into him, close enough to have their lips only inches apart. "It tasted like…" she sees him swallow but he doesn't take his eyes off her. He's pretty cute when he's all overwhelmed by her presence. "… a regular M&M's, dumbass."

The offended look on his face is priceless which makes her laugh. But her laugh eventually turns into a genuine smile and she softly says. "It tasted like a nice and warm day in the company of Danny McCoy."

When she grabs her towel and walks away, Danny is still smiling like an idiot.


	7. You Two Make A Good Team

Sam emerges from nowhere and leans over the counter, making eye contact with Danny.

"So?" Danny questions.

"Not sure," Sam replies simply, then stares at the notes that she wrote on her electronic notebook. "He's..."

"Yeah right...What about your other client?"

"No," Sam shakes her head, "She wouldn't…"

"Well…"

"Maybe if you could..."

"Yeah, okay. Then if you..."

Sam shrugs then nods. "I think it's manageable..."

"But you'll have to...

"Sure..."

He pauses for a second. "Then I will…

"Hm hm..."

"Then we'll have to..."

"I know."

Danny leans back in his chair. They lock eyes, smile at each other, the agreement settled on their faces.

"Okay," Sam says. "I'll see you later, then."

"Okay," Danny repeats. "See you later."

Sam waves him a goodbye and walks away.

"What the hell was that?" Delinda demands as soon as Sam left.

"What?" Danny asks, confused. "Sam just asked me if I could help her out with one of her clients. She's busy with four different whales this weekend and since one of them is rather fond of me, I'm supposed to hang out with her. So we just agreed on each other's schedules to fit her client's preferences," he explains. Delinda was just right there, certainly she heard and understood what they just said, right?

"So that's what you and Sam just talked about a moment ago?" Delinda says, surprised covering her entire face.

"You were right next to me, Delinda," he points out.

"Yeah but it was like you and Sam were having some secret conversation. Like only you two could understand whatever the other was saying," Delinda's smile grows wide so fast that for one second Danny worries she may tear her mouth apart. "It's cute. I mean, you and Sam understand each other so well. You two make a good team."

Her smile is still so huge and Danny chuckles. "We're all a team. The Montecito team, remember?"

"Sure but..." she bumps her shoulder against his playfully, and then she lowers her to speak in a conspiracy tone. "...you guys are _'Sam-and-Danny'_."

Danny raises his eyebrows at her, not sure where she is going with that. "You just made that up, Delinda."

"Maybe," she shrugs, looking him dead in the eyes. "But it doesn't make it any less true. The bond you share with Sam is particular. Everybody in this casino can see it. The way your eyes drink her in whenever she's around, the way your body relax when she leans onto you, the way she smiles at you, the way she's less guarded with you...she's not like that with anybody else. It says a lot about your relationship."

"Sam and I don't have a relationship," he replies quickly and the words leave a sour taste in his mouth.

But Delinda rolls her yes, having none of the crap Danny is pulling. "But whatever you two have is important. I mean, it is _something_ , right? That something is _important_ to you, so don't let that it go."

He unconsciously nods because whatever him and Sam have is so precious, so dear to his heart that he has tried to keep it hidden, enfolded with bubble wrap, so it wouldn't burst open and shatter on the ground. But Delinda knows now and he's not sure what to say, so he just nods and wishes with all this heart that _that something_ will stay his forever.


	8. The Sound Of Happiness And Madness

For weeks Danny has kept his attachment to Sam secret, he holds it in his heart, guards it like it is a precious gem he couldn't afford to lose.

But Mary knows him so well. She can read him like an opened book and it is written all over his face anyway.

"You should tell her," she says.

Danny isn't looking at her because his hazel eyes are following Sam's form sliding across the casino floor. Danny looks like a man in love, Mary thinks.

"She might leave. I don't want her to."

"She _is_ leaving though, right? Four months, remember? That's how long she said she would stay. May as well tell her how you feel."

And Danny does remember because he has kept track, counted down the numbers of weeks and if Sam keeps her words, she would be gone next month. The idea doesn't sit well with him. It makes his heart hurt a little too much. He is sure the Casino would feel empty without her in it. Or maybe it's just him that would feel empty without her around, without her smiles and her laughs. He would miss her terribly.

"She told me not to get attached," he tells Mary as he turns to face his best friend.

She offers him a sad, sad smile and pats his shoulder. "But you didn't listen, did you, Danny?"

The question makes him laugh. No, he didn't. Because it was already too late, he was already far too gone, far too attached to her.

Sam left her prints on him. She marked him, scratched him, pierced him, there and then, and he smiled the entire time. He can't go back from that, doesn't want to. He is certain he is asking for a heartbreak from Sam, he is asking for her to tear him in half but Sam drives him completely mental and he's honestly so fond of the sound of her laugh, the sound of happiness and madness when she's just _herself_ around him.

It'll probably end bad. It'll be messy and ugly. Mike adores Sam but says she is _trouble._ However _,_ just because you know the end doesn't mean you're not allowed to enjoy the ride before it all crashes down and ends up in ashes.

Danny is willing to take the risk. Sam is worth the effort and the pain in the end.


	9. Green Is A Beautiful Colour

"Hey! Do I look okay? My whale is on his way here and I need to look _impeccable,_ " Sam asks coming up right behind Danny who is standing up right at the Casino's main entrance.

His head turns to face her. She's now dressed in a dark green, sleeveless dress with matching heels. But it's her hair that makes the bird in his stomach sing. Her hair, it's starting to curl, slowly, softly, it's becoming wavy, just the way he likes. _Beautiful_. She's absolutely beautiful.

He saw Ed push her into the pool earlier. When she got out, she was dripping wet, with her hair heavy and her white shirt clinging to her skin, revealing enough of her chest to have some of the men by the pool whistle at her slim and _touchable_ figure. Sam did not pay attention to them and when one of them tried to touch her butt to catch her attention, Danny was right there to crush his wrist with his hand. Sam winked at him for the bravado and then she was gone.

"There..." he takes one strand of her hair and puts it behind her ear. Her face looks cloudless, serene, _hopeful_ in this green outfit. " _Perfect_. As always," he tells her, and maybe he's saying too much but he always does with Sam. She makes him say too much, feel too much but he doesn't mind. "Green is definitely your colour."

She should wear it more often. He could see himself fall in love with her just like that, her dressed in green and her hair wavy.

She can't thank him because her whale is here now and Danny steps back and she feels like miles are separating them now. It's an unpleasant feeling that doesn't sit right with her but she has no time to dwell onto it because feelings and emotions are an inconvenience and she hates them.

"Samantha, my dear!" her whale greets her. He takes her face in his hands and kisses her cheeks. Mr Hann loves doing that with everyone, including with Sam whom he says has the cutest face he's ever seen and he couldn't help himself but touch it whenever he had the chance to. "You look as radiant as ever in green."

Sam smiles because she knows that already but the compliment is still appreciated.

"Told you," Danny whispers in her ear as he brushes past her to go back inside and when she turns around to beam at him, he's nowhere to be seen.

She misses him already and she bits her lip at the realisation. She has gotten trapped in her own game. She has gotten attached to Danny.


	10. Kissing Is A Brilliant Activity

"I unpacked my bags."

That's what she said, with all the seriousness in the world and all the bright stars above her head. And then a small, genuine smile draws itself onto her lips and Danny feels all his strength leaving him. He gives up. He can't fight against his feelings for her anymore. Because she looks so beautiful and carefree. She makes it too damn hard not to love her. It's so damn exhausting trying not to love her. So he dives, and finally kisses her.

It's slow, and long, and soft.

It warms her heart. Her hands are shaking when she brushes them into his hair. It's stupid, Sam thinks, but she is pretty certain she could do this— _kiss him_ again and again— all her life. She could learn to love that man.

"Brilliant," Danny murmurs when they break the kiss, his lips still inches apart from hers. "Absolutely brilliant."

Then he pecks her lips and she smiles. So he steals a few more kisses which makes her burst into laugher and Danny's heart swells with pride. Because right there and then, Sam sounds so happy and free, with him, beneath the luminous and cloudless sky and he wouldn't trade this moment for anything.

Eventually, he lies down, and tucks her into his chest as she puts her arm around his waist, feeling comfortable and safe like never before.

He brushes a kiss on the top of her head. "Thanks for taking me here, Sam."

"Thanks for coming with me," she says as a shooting star darts across the night sky and they both silently wish upon it.


	11. Don't Kiss & Tell

"You can't tell anyone," Sam tells Danny as she bites his ear. _Hard_.

He shivers, presses her more against the wall, and kisses her even harder. "What?"

"You can't tell anyone about whatever is going between us," she breathes, her head back, her eyes closed as he trails kisses on her neck. "Promise me you won't or I swear I will end you."

But Danny isn't listening, he is too distracted. With her legs around his waist, her body firm, hot, perfect against him, he can't think straight. Her perfume, her smell, she is driving him crazy. The entirety of Sam is making him lose all common sense.

He wants to kiss her, to ravish her right and then, he wants her—

"Danny!" she snaps and suddenly he can't move, he can't kiss her anymore, and he feels like his skin is screaming for hers. The grip she has on his hair is tight, and she is looking at him seriously, furiously, somehow. She's breathtaking, being angry and hot on top of him.

"What?" he asks again, his hands going up and down her tights. Big, bright brown eyes stare down at him.

"You can't tell anyone about us," Sam repeats. Her hand leaves the top of his head to play with the soft hair on the back of his neck. "If you tell anyone, I will hurt you so bad that you'll regret ever meeting me."

He chuckles and leans down to kiss her on the lips. "I will never regret meeting you."

Her teeth pierce his lips and he hisses in pain. That makes her smile and she licks his swollen lip and kisses him in return.

"Don't try to charm me, McCoy," she kisses him again, slowly, intimately and Danny feels like his heart is about to explode, as if she is about to destroy him, but then she abruptly stops. The feeling is still there, burning and destructive, he can feel it, even up to the tips of his fingers. He thinks he could touch it if he tries hard enough. "Promise me, Danny?"

"I promise," he swears, losing himself in the brown of her eyes. "I won't tell," he whispers inches away from her lips. She nods and the promise is sealed with more kisses and love bites.


	12. Make Up Stories And Childhood Memories

"Sam, it's your turn, now," Delinda says and Sam looks up from her phone to see all her friends's faces turned towards her, looking at her impatiently, eagerly. Nessa's smile is so huge that Sam is fairly sure her face is going to break from smiling so hard. "Time to share your childhood anecdote."

"Right. Childhood anecdote," she ignores them all and starts typing on her phone again. "I don't remember agreeing with this."

Nessa glances at Mary and her smile turns into a smirk and out of nowhere she violently grabs Sam's phone from her hands and stands up on her toes, making it impossible for Sam to reach it.

"Hey! Give it back!" Sam tells her, frustration already in her tone and on her face.

Even with her heels, Sam is still too short to reach Nessa's hand. Then Nessa—feeling like being petty and annoying till the end—throws the phone to Mike—himself scared of Sam—immediately throws it to Delinda, who sent it to Mary and finally Danny is the last person to gain the precious phone.

It's the unsmiling and cold look that Sam wears on her face while walking up to him that has Danny sink further onto his seat. Surely, Sam wouldn't hurt him for a phone, right?"

" _Give. It. Back_ ," her face is very close to his, and she looks rather scary and determined.

But Danny feels bold and brave (and maybe he has a death wish too), and puts the phone in his pocket. "Nope. Just tell us something and only then, I will give you your phone back."

The glare she throws him screams betrayal and revenge and Danny swallows a little. Sam can be terrifying when she sets her mind to it.

"Yeah, right, spit it out, Sam," Nessa tells her, smirking. "We don't have all day."

And it's Danny's smug face that makes something clink in her mind. This is gonna be _so_ amusing.

"Alright," she turns away from Danny and falls back onto her seat. She is aware of the gaze set upon her, and she clears her throat once she found out the right story to tell. "So, when I was little my dad used to tell me stories about a mysterious island that flies in the sky. See, there was a castle on this floating island and I was a firm believer that the castle existed and little me wanted to prove it to everyone. So one day, I run away with a boy that saved my life once, and we went looking for the island with for sole companion our determination. We hid wherever we could. At some point, cops caught up with us and we run away, fell in a hole and met an old and homeless man that thought he was still a miner. He told us he believed in the existence of the island too. In the end, he helped us the best he could and you know…" Sam stops, her face deadly serious, daring anyone to say something.

Danny looks away, fighting a smile.

Mary frowns.

Delinda looks rather suspicious.

And Mike shakes his head, even more certain now that Sam is completely crazy.

"That's complete…. _rubbish_ ," Nessa stutters not believing a word of Sam's story.

And Sam's laugh bursts all around them, around Danny and it feels funny tingles running all across his skin at the sound of it. He could hear her laughing all day.

"You're being so rude, Nessa. I didn't judge your childhood story, you shouldn't judge mine," Sam says as the brown in her eyes seem to sparkle. She meets Danny's gaze and she winks at him because she knows he got the reference.

A laugh rises from Danny's throat then because only her would do that. Only Sam would use movie plots and make up childhood stories based on those movies.

They've watched it together, _Castle In The Sky_ , it's Sam's favourite; he found out after they spent a few movie nights together. Danny remembers how her eyes changed, how her face relaxed when she immersed herself in the movie, as if she wanted to be inside, as if she no longer wanted to be Sam Marquez but someone else that nobody could take, nobody could catch, because the person didn't exist. Maybe she didn't want to exist, maybe she wanted to disappear. Danny just hopes she won't.

"Stop laughing, Danny! She didn't tell us the truth!" Nessa says, offended. "And don't you dare give her her phone back! A deal is a deal."

Sam smiles at Nessa and slides forwards Danny. Her lips brushes Danny's ear and he shivers as she whispers to him. "I used to be left-handed but when I was a kid I fell from a tree and broke my left arm. It was horrible and if I concentrate hard enough I can remember how painful it was. Anyway, when I fell down I stayed by the tree, I didn't call for anyone, I just sat still and cried for hours and eventually passed out from pain and exhaustion. Turned out I broke my arm in three different places and I couldn't hold a pen with my left-hand for about four months, so I had to learn to write with my right-hand. Now I'm good with both hands but I prefer using with my right-hand because sometimes it still hurts holding just a simple pen for too long with my left-hand… The pain is still here even if I got accustomed to it."

This time Danny knows she's telling the truth. Because there's no pretence, no fake smile on her face. Her eyes are bare and full of genuineness. Besides, he noticed the marks on her arm, he counted the tiny scars from the surgery on her skin one day when she was sleeping and he had nothing better to do but watch her. He never asked her about them. Because he doesn't want to force his way into Sam's life, he wants her to let him in, at her own pace.

"Was it a good enough story for you?"

Now her nose is touching his, it tickles a little, and her lips are not far from his either. If he moves forward—just a tad—he can kiss her, full on the mouth. He wants to, but he doesn't because he promised her he wouldn't, wouldn't expose their relationship until she was ready to do so.

So he just nods to answer her question, the movement causing his nose to slightly brush hers.

"Good. Now, give me my phone," she holds her hand out to him and he has no other choice than giving her the phone back.

"You're not allowed to tell them what I just told you," she steps back as she turns around to leave, his eyes following her figure.

"Danny!" Nessa hisses and punches him in the shoulder.

"She told me something, Nessa," Danny says, holding his hands out in defence. "Something real...this time."

"How do you know? Maybe she was lying," Mike asks as he finishes up his drink.

"She wasn't," he says simply. Danny realises that Sam's always sincere with him. Even when she lies which is funny. Sam is at her most authentic, at her most honest when he's around her.

"You're not going to tell us, right?" Mary asks him.

The smile on his face and the shake of his head say it all. "Nope. She'd end me if I do and no offence but she's scarier than all of you combined."


	13. To Love Is Like A Secret

_I don't want to love him. I don't want to love him. I don't want to love him._

Her pretty lies whistle in her own ears. They slide across her lips, across her heart and then it bits into her bones, into her soul and she blinks because Danny is kissing her and the pretty lies fall down, ugly, heavy and uncomfortable, in her stomach.

"You alright?" his nose brushes away the crease on her forehead.

His thumbs are soft against her cheeks, and she tries to smile but her eyes become wet and she hates him (sometimes) for making her feel _so much_ , _all the time_. His softness, his goodness, she can feel in her fingers, in her feet, like a spirit invading her body.

"I think I like having you around too," she admits in a whisper, answering the question he asked her months ago. And it's the wideness of his smile, the heartful sound of his laugh that makes her warm and fuzzy. _He's happy_. So she kisses him again, long and slow, as if she wants to remember the entirety of him through the simpleness of a kiss, as if she wants to remember happiness through the sensation of his lips against hers. "Don't let it go to your head, though, McCoy."

He rolls his eyes but his smile is still here. Sam is shining, she is glowing, looking radiant under the dim light of the room, right above him. The rouge of her lipstick is nearly gone, spread all over his skin, and it's when she bits her lower lip that Danny realises that he's far too gone, that he's in it way too deep, and that Sam, Sam, _Sam,_ that girl with tons of smiles and tons of lies _,_ she's going to be the death of him and he is going to hold her till it burns him and love her till it destroys him.

"I like you too, Marquez," he whispers against the skin of her neck, like a confession, like a secret. But it's some three other words that get stuck in his throat, that burn him inside out. _I love you. I love you. I love you._


	14. Sick Day Rhymes With Bad Day

Danny finds Sam sat at the bar, head hidden in her arms, her hair all over the counter. A quick glance at Ericka the barmaid and she mouths the word _'sick'_ with her finger pointing her at Sam.

He bends over Sam's motionless frame.

"Hey…" he says softly as he pushes her hair out of her face to touch her brown. "You're burning hot, sweetheart," he tells her than turns to Ericka. "Thanks for calling me, Ericka. I'll take her to her suite."

He gently takes Sam off her chair and slowly walks towards the nearest elevator.

"I'm always hot for you," her hot breath tickles his ear and her attempt at flirting would be splendid if it wasn't for her hoarse voice and her shaking all over.

By the time they reach the elevator, Sam's entire body is trembling so hard and even Danny's warmth isn't enough to heat her up.

* * *

"This is God punishing me for being a horrible person," Sam spits, her head above the toilet. She's been throwing up for the past fifteen minutes, and she feels gross and dirty and tiny. Just like the way she used to feel when she was a kid. The past memories hurt her stomach, burn her skull and she wants to cry at the stupidity, at her stupidity.

"You're not a horrible person," Danny's holding her hair and his large, soft hand is tracing circles over her back. He smells good, and his heart is good, and he is good all over, from the tips of his toes to the end of his eyelashes. Danny is so good and Sam is so, _so_ certain that the more he spends time with her, the more she's gonna stain him, she's gonna ruin him and he'll hate her for it. _Danny. Sweet Danny_. She likes him too much to ruin him like that.

"I'm not good," she whispers as she leans against the wall. The need to throw up is gone but she doesn't feel like standing up yet. The coldness of the wall feels good on her burning skin, it matches the coldness in her heart, the hardness of her soul. "Not good enough. Never good enough."

Danny could see tiny tears at the corners of her eyes. He wipes them away and murmurs sweet words against her cheek, in her ear. "You're plenty good. You're perfect to me."

The sincerity she sees in his eyes warm her up a little bit but it's her dry laugh that tears him apart. She doesn't believe him.

* * *

He is playing Tetris on his phone while Sam is sleeping next to him; brown hair spread out over the pillow, her entire body tucked in under the mass of blankets, the crease in the middle of her forehead showing she's not serene in her sleep.

She always sleeps like; on her side, curled up like the smallest cat, taking as little space as possible, wrapped in her own world, as if she wanted to be safe from anything that could hurt her, from anything that could love her.

* * *

Hours later, it's a knock on the door that breaks the peaceful atmosphere in the room and shakes Sam awake. She groans and the frown on her face deepens. "Shh, go back to sleep," Danny caresses her hair to soothe her back to sleep and then heads to the door.

When he opens it, he finds Delinda, smiling and holding a bag in her hand. "Chicken soup for Sam."

"She's sleeping but thanks," Delinda hands him the bag and walks into the suite. "Don't wake her up," he warns, closing the door.

He puts the bag on the small table and joins Delinda on the couch by the window.

"She looks dead," Delinda says, frowning at Sam's appearance and Danny rolls his eyes at Delinda's choice of words.

"Thanks, Delinda," he replies sarcastically.

To her defence, Sam is rather pale with her cracked lips, her huge shadows under her eyes and her cold skin. She looks nothing like the ecstatic, euphoric Sam they've grown to see and love. "It's almost scary. It never occurred to me that Sam could fall sick. I mean, she's just _so_ mean...her whole aura would scare any sickness away," that makes Danny giggle because it's just so true. "Here she looks just tiny and..."

"...fragile?" Danny finishes, uncertain. But she does look tiny and fragile under the duvet of the bed, under the ugly sickness and the harshness of the world.

"Yeah," Delinda agrees. "I can't wait for her to feel better. It's not funny when Sam is not around to terrorise people," she adds then she abruptly turns to Danny, her hair hitting him square in the face. He blinks. She doesn't apologise. "Are you and Sam sleeping together now?"

The sudden change of topic takes Danny off guard. He glances at Sam, then at Delinda. He clears his throat. "We're not," he answers frankly, looking Delinda right in the eyes because he's not lying. It is not a lie. They are not just sleeping together. It's so much more than that now. It means so much more to him now.

"Danny."

"Delinda."

His tone is in no way harsh but her name comes out sharp in his mouth and she knows she's walking on a thin ice here, with Sam sleeping on the bed and Danny tensed besides her. His eyes are on Sam's sleeping frame again, Delinda notices. Delinda has never seen Danny looks at anyone like that, not even Mary. He looks awfully, terribly in love and Delinda wonders if he knows it or if Sam knows.

Danny lets his hand run over his face, then his focus is back on Delinda. "She's always so tough, so fierce, so harsh but she looks after her people, right?" It's a rethorical question but Delinda nods all the same. "She needs someone to look after her."

Delinda can read love in his eyes, can feel fondness and protectiveness directed towards Sam.

"And you're that someone," Delinda concludes.

"As long as she lets me," he says, his gaze once again lingering over Sam's body. "As long as she wants me."

* * *

Danny wakes up from his faint sleep when he feels Sam schift. She slowly moves across the bed and curls up against him. Her icy hands grab at his shirt, and her head takes place in the crook of his neck. She sighs exhaustively and happily."You're warm. _Always_ ," she whispers, as if it is a secret. "It's nice."

Sam is cold against him, but he doesn't mind. He likes having her close, he likes feeling her body fits against his in such an imperfect way that it only makes it even more perfect. He kisses the top of her head as he wraps the cover more securely around them both. "Feeling better?"

She shakes her head and the tiny movement has all her thoughts spin and she closes her eyes again. "No. But you're here, all soft and warm. _Don't_ move."

"Okay," he promises, holding her tightly against him. He understood what she said, what she meant by don't go. She meant d _on't leave_ and he won't. "I'm not going anywhere."


	15. Sand, Sand Everywhere

"I knew I had a reason for hating that car," Sam babbles, spits from where she is sitting on the hood of Danny's car. Danny sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose, trying not to snap at her, trying to tame the anger that is scratching, bitting his stomach .

Sam has been nothing but rude the moment they left the casino together. Under the heavy, harsh, hot Sun of Vegas, Sam is sweating rudeness and meanness. It sticks and slides all over her skin, infects her words and Danny wants to scream.

It's supposed to be a good day.

But she keeps being awful and throwing shades about his car and she knows, she _knows_ , he adores this car, so she keeps hitting, keeps pushing his buttons, buttons he didn't know he had.

"Shut up, Sam. Just shut up, okay?" he says finally as he drops the tool onto the ground.

He's not going to fix the stupid flat tyre. Not when he is doing it all wrong, with the tyre, with Sam. He knew he was running towards a disaster the moment he got involved with her, but now, he feels like he's racing towards it, with his foot pressed on the accelerator and fear in his stomach.

"No. _Not okay_! You don't tell me to shut up," she hops off the hood and rises on her tiptoes as her finger pokes at his chest.

She has drops of sweat in the middle of her forehead, on the bridge of her nose and right above her upper lip. His mom used to say that only bad people with an ugly past, bad people with a sad story could sweat on those places. Danny wonders if Sam could fit into one of those categories and which it would be.

"What's wrong with you today?" he hisses as he grabs her wrist, preventing her from moving her finger, or her hand, preventing her from moving at all. "You've been a total bitch—yes, _Sam_ , a total bitch—since the moment we left. It was supposed to be great, just the two of us, you know. But you've been complaining the whole time and the flat tyre sure didn't help but you are sure not helping right now! So I'm asking you again, what's wrong?"

It's the impatience, the frustration all over his face, all over his posture that makes her snap.

"WHAT'S WRONG? YOU WANT TO KNOW WHAT'S WRONG? I'M TIRED AND IT'S UNBEARABLY HOT AND I HAVE DESERT SAND ALL OVER ME, IN MY SHOES, IN MY HAIR AND MAYBE EVEN MY PANTIES! AND _YOU_ , YOU JUST DECIDED TO CLEAR MY SCHEDULE FOR THE REST OF THE DAY WITHOUT CONSULTING ME FIRST, LIKE YOU _OWN_ ME! AND THEN YOU GRABBED ME OUT OF NOWHERE AND PUT ME IN YOUR STUPID CAR! PEOPLE ARE GONNA ASK QUESTIONS, DANNY! THEY'RE GONNA ASK ABOUT US—"

"—WHO CARES? EVERYBODY ALREADY KNOWS ANYWAY, SAM!" he yells back, his hands up in his hair now and it's when the screaming and the yelling die that all he can hear is Sam's harsh breath that he realises he should have told her about _that_ , about everybody knowing about them. It's when Sam looks at him with confusion and apprehension that he realises he fucked up.

She takes a step back and Danny can see the walls behind her eyes going up, he can see her pulling up her defences all over again. It scares him, terrifies him. She could refuse to let him in again, and the thought sends cold and aching tingles on his spine.

"I mean...they don't know for sure...not all of them...but I think…I mean, I'm pretty sure...they all suspect...sorta..." he sutters and he wants to reach out for her, he wants to touch her. But right now he feels like there's a wall between them, a wall that won't fall unless she decides so.

"You didn't tell me. Why didn't you tell me?"

"You would have broken up with me," he says and his fingers twitch when she doesn't contradict him. "You would have freaked out. You're freaking out," he adds.

She's not saying anything, not looking at him, and even if she's just a few inches away from him, she seems miles away, somewhere he can't go, can't reach and she looks like she could leave right now and she wouldn't care if it leaves him broken and unfixable.

He licks his lips. They taste like bits of hope, they taste like bits of her. "We've been together for what? Six months now?"

"Seven, actually. Seven months in five days."

The idea of her counting makes him smile. "7 months, right. Great. We could tell them."

"No."

There's something terrible in the back of her eyes and Danny silently wishes she would never stop talking because whenever she ties her lips, whenever she goes all silent and pensive he could see shadows of fear and distrust lurking all around her brown orbs and pinching her rosy mouth.

He wants to destroy them, to burn them, those shadows, that darkness that Sam carries with her all the time.

"Why? Are you ashamed of me or something?" he asks.

She shakes her eyes and ignores the urge to hug him and to reassure him, and to tell him how perfect he is.

"Then why? Sam, I don't get it—"

"You and I, _us_ , it's not gonna last," she says and her eyes are huge on her face, so huge that they look like they're going to eat her, the whole of her, and there's nothing he can do to save her. "With all my failures and my bad nature, it's not gonna last. I just want to keep it secret and hidden so that when it ends, when we're over, I'll hide the tears and the heartbreak. I'll be miserable in secret."

Her fake smile and ugly lies ruin her pretty face. He doesn't understand right away, or maybe he doesn't want to understand at all. But he lets it go because she's being unreasonable and stubborn but even trapped in her own unreasonable and stubborn world, he thinks she's still beautiful. With sand in her hair and her strands all over the place, she's never looked more delicate and he just wants to kiss the self-doubt and self-hate out of her.

Now his hands are on her waist, caressing the softness of her skin, his eyes staring down at her with kindness and tenderness.

"Hey, look at me... Please, look at me, Sam," when she does, he kisses the top of her nose and she smiles and she shines and everything is perfect again. "You and I, it's gonna last. We're forever. We're infinite. Mark my words, Marquez."

She rolls her eyes but she's the one that iniates the hug and she finds herself counting his heartbeats as her ear rests against his chest. "Whatever you say, Pretty Boy McCoy."

It's later, much later, after fixing the tyre, and taking tons of pics, and making even more memories, when they're back home and safe in the warmth of their blankets that Danny realises he should have told Sam he loved her.

He should have told her that he loved her so that the sand would have flied away and carried this secret along the way, so that a bit of his love for Sam would have travelled everywhere and lived forever.


	16. The Art Of Falling Down

Danny has always thought Sam was very light, and hell, he even carried her around a few times, and she is actually very light, maybe, even _too_ light, and it worries him sometimes because she's so _so_ tiny. But the last time, he brought the topic of her weight up, she nicely told him to piss off so he wisely just dropped it because when Sam told you to piss off, you just do, right? Unless you have a death wish.

Anyway, Danny has always known out of experience that Samantha Jane Marquez was the lightest female he has ever met. However, when she had the brilliant idea to violently crash _into_ him and to even more violently land _onto_ him after taking a wrong turn on the ice, Danny had no choice but ungracefully fell down with a breathless and speechless Sam on top of him.

"Sam? Sam, you're still alive, right? I mean….are you okay?"

She closes her eyes tight, _very_ tight, and maybe, if she does it long enough, if she concentrates hard enough, then, maybe, _maybe_ , Danny and _all his stupid ideas_ would disappear and go burn in hell.

"I mean…it would be nice to know if you're okay, if you can move too… because well, your elbow, your very cute and strong elbow is crushing my stomach and I can barely breathe…so if you could…move….please…it would be great. No pressure though."

Sam doesn't move, doesn't even open her eyes, because if she does, she might hurt him. She is pretty sure she would. No hesitation.

She knew, she fucking knew agreeing to go to the Skating Rink with Danny would be a disaster. It was a bad idea from the very moment the words came out of his pretty mouth. Danny only has bad ideas. He smells bad ideas, he attracts them even. And Sam, god bless her generous, well-meaning soul, she went a long with one them. _Never again_.

So when Danny said _"Come on, Sam. Ice skating is fun. It's gonna be just the two of us and it's gonna be splendid. I promise,"_ she believed him. Dear god, she did believe him because he had said it with such a smile; it was a child's smile, a sincere and authentic one—one of those smiles even Satan couldn't look away from. So, obviously, she couldn't just tell him no, especially when he kissed her full on the mouth and held her tight against him, and it was the fuzziness in her stomach and the warmth of his body, she realised, that took away her common sense and her sanity and had her say yes. _Damn him_.

"Sam? Honey, say something…" and Danny feels his throat ache because maybe Sam hurt her head when she fell, maybe she's not okay and the whole ice skating was a terrible idea. "Sam? Sam! I don't care if you're heavy and your deadly weight is making me regret missing my gym days but please just say som—

"What the hell did you just _say_?" Sam snaps immediately as she raises her head to glare at him, making sure to crush his stomach even more as she rests her entire _deadly_ weight onto both of her elbows. She would literally pierce his stomach with her very own elbows if she could right now.

She sees him swallow and the smile he tries to give her is fragile and weak. He is terrified because Sam, jesus, she looks absolutely frightening right now, with her hair all over the place and the darkness of her eyes _._

"Me? What—what did I say? No—nothing, I meant…I just wanted to make sure you were…alright and not dead, you know..." he weakly stammers.

"You said that _I was heavy_ and that I have a _deadly weight_. Just call me _fat_ then. Say it, already. Just say I am _obese_ Danny!" she hisses.

And Danny just wants to run away. He's not strong enough to deal with his very angry girlfriend. This day-out with Sam is absolutely horrifying. Everything is so much better, so much _safer_ when they remain at the casino and share sweet words and steal soft kisses in secret.

"What? No! I would never, Sam, honey, babe, sweetheart...I would never say such thing," Danny babbles as he feels hot and he swears he's sweating under his layers of clothes and the coldness of the ice rink. "You're in no way fat or obese. You're just too thin and too short—"

He doesn't dare finishing his sentence because between Sam's elbows preventing the air from circulating optimally in his body, her death glares burning holes in his skull and her natural meanness, Danny feels like he is about to pass out.

"I hate you. And I hate ice skating," Sam says distinctly, and Danny may start thinking she means what she's saying.

"Right, me too. I mean, I don't hate you. Or me. I don't hate me. I just don't like ice skating anymore. It's not that great, right? Pretty dumb idea coming here, if you want my opinion," he chuckles, trying to joke.

She ignores him as she finally gets up which allows Danny to properly breathe again. She has to roll her eyes as he dramatically pats his chest and takes huge breathes, his ass still sat on the very cold ice.

"I am _not_ heavy."

"You're not. Definitely not," he raises on his feet and gently grabs Sam's face on his hands, feeling the softness of his skin under his fingers. "I'm sorry, Sam."

And suddenly, like nothing happened, Sam bursts into a laughter.

"It's alright, I was just messing with you to be honest," she admits with a devilish smirk on her rosy lips and her hands on her hips. Now it's Danny's turn to roll his eyes. "But now that we've both agreed that I'm _not_ heavy, you can carry me around, right? Because I really hate ice skating, but you know...if you're the one skating around..."

During the following hour, Danny, with a very l _ight_ and very _delighted_ Sam in his arms, skates around the ice rink, making sure not to accidentally drop her. She would end him if he ever does. And never mind if the muscles in his arms burn the whole time, Sam is right where he wants her to be, with her arms around his neck and her body very close to him, and it is just perfect.

"I don't hate you," she whispers in his ear at some point, and her head comes to rest on his shoulder.

"I know," he replies back and at the corner of his eyes, he sees her smile for real.


	17. Who's Jealous?

She should have taken her day off.

But now, it's too late. She's seen him near the bar. With a girl. She was dancing around him, with him, on him.

And suddenly, out of nowhere, she kissed him. This random girl _kissed_ Danny and Sam felt like the ground tremble, and her heart, in her chest, ached enough to make her hand turn into a fist.

Sam saw red, and maybe she even wanted the girl dead. Because in her stomach, everything twisted, everything burned and the terror crawled all over her, from her toes to the tips of her fingers.

So Sam took a step back and swallowed the jealousy that was choking her, that was mocking her.

* * *

"Hey."

She is sitting up straight in front of her glass of wine. She ignores him.

"Are you alright, Sam?"

"Peachy."

Danny frowns a little because Sam, he likes her beaming and grinning but right now, she is a bit stony, a bit chilly and whenever she's not looking at him like she is doing right now, he feels like he can't reach the distance that is separating them. It's the unknown, he realises, that will end him, that will kill him because he never entirely knows what to expect from Sam, what to do with her and it terrifies him because he will never truly and fully understand this woman, and Sam deserves someone that can understand her, the whole of her.

But Danny doesn't want let her go though. He refuses. Because he can truly and fully love her. He already does. And that's supposed to be enough, right?

"...Are you mad at me?" he asks as his fingers close around her glass of wine. He notices that her lipstick, delicious and vicious lipstick is almost gone and he wonders how many glasses she has had so far.

She turns to him, licking her upper lip and her finger glides over his mouth, slowly, softly. He smiles and then she abruptly stops and Danny feels like he has ruined everything.

"Who was that girl?"

Danny blinks, the frown on his brow deepens. "What? Who?"

Sam wonders if he is doing it on purpose or if he's truly being clueless. She just wants to get up, throw her glass at his face and scatter his cuteness all over the floor.

Instead, she just hops off the chair and leaves him there, confused and his heart bruised.

* * *

 _She remembers her grandmother, her Abuela, and the sweet cakes she used to make._

 _Sam remembers loving one cake in particular, and eating the whole thing on her own. She was tiny but stubborn and she was hungry, but by the end of the night, she was hurting, crying and emptying her stomach in the toilet because even if she loved the cake that much, it seemed that the cake didn't love her back._

 _She remembers feeling soft and content in her grandma's arms and Abuela smelt like apple and cinnamon and that was the way mothers were supposed to smell according to Sam._

 _"Love is great but love never lasts. When you love, your heart gets walked on over and over and ten years later, it still hurts. So, Sammy, listen to your poor ol' Abuelita, never like or love something too much or too hard, alright, 'cause it's not worth it. Don't give it the power to hurt you. You're far too pretty to cry over an ugly thing like love."_

 _And Sam smiled like she got it, like she understood the secrets of the universe by just listening to her grandmother. "No crying over cakes, then?"_

 _Her grandmother chuckled, kissing the top of her head, praying that innocence would never leave Sam's naive heart. "Exactly, no crying over cakes, Sammy."_

* * *

She barely closed the door of her suite when soft lips land on hers, arms wrap around her slim waist and it's his perfume that makes her heart race and her head spin. She could get lost in this sensation, floats, swim in it forever and ever.

But then she remembers she is mad at him, and Danny, she pushes him away. Hard.

"Don't you have another mouth to go kiss?" she spits, sarcastically as she wipes her lips with the back of her hand as if she is trying to clean the taste of him kissing another woman off her.

"Jealous, aren't we? Green is definitely your colour, honey," he jokes and the smirk on his face is suddenly the most annoying thing on the planet. He dares smirk and all she wants to do is smack the smirk off his face.

"Get out, Danny."

She opens the door but his hand forces it close again as he moves towards her.

"Listen to me, Sam," He traps her body with his and he strokes her cheek with his thumb. "The girl that you saw, the one who kissed me—because yes, she kissed me. _I_ didn't. I didn't kiss her back either, but you were probably gone when I pushed her away. That girl has been kissing people all day long. She dances and when she's done, she kisses people, men, women, whatever. She's done that all day. She even kissed Mike, just ask him."

He is not lying. He would never.

"You're my favourite person in this casino. You're my best girl, you know that, right?"

But Sam doesn't answer because now she feels stupid. He makes her feel stupid and just for that, she wants him gone but it's _her_ —it's her hand that reaches his shirt collar, it's her heart that races for him. And Sam stubbornly ignores the little voice in her head, she pushes away the little secret that wants to come out, and soon she is kissing him like she wants to have him right there and then but the need to cry tingles her heart and her eyes, because getting attached wasn't part of her plan when she came to the Montecito.

"Don't ever make me jealous again or I will murder your sorry ass. Your cuteness won't save you," she threatens but her lips are soft and lovely and Danny is fairly certain he wouldn't mind getting his heart broken by her.

"Got it, Ma'am," he says his lips never leaving hers as he grabs her tights to pull her up against him before walking up to the bed.


	18. Tiniest And Brightest Flame

"He hit you," Danny states as his fingers gently run over the forming bruise on her cheek. "He _hurt_ you."

"Well, you hit him back with a shovel. Serves him right," she jokes but her cheek hurts quite enough so her smile is nothing but frailness and weakness. "It doesn't hurt that much," she says to reassure him.

She is so beautiful, with the orange sun above her head, and the light in her big, brown eyes, it keeps flickering, dancing like the tiniest, brightest flame and Danny swear she had never looked more alive, more kissable.

Still Danny can't laugh, can't smile, he just brings her into a hug and hides his face into her hair. He holds her tight, squeezing the air out of her, and she may be imagining things but it seems like he's shaking.

"Danny…I'm okay," Sam breathes as she feels Danny's nose sliding across the skin of her neck, breathing in her scent. She gently pats his back, trying to bring him comfort. She wants to be as reassuring as a warm blanket during winter nights. She's not sure how to do it, so she just holds him as tight and brushes an invisible kiss against his ear. "Really, I'm fine."

He doesn't let go though, and since he knows Ed is too busy dealing with the cops all around them, Danny quickly kisses her neck, her cheeks, her nose and then her lips, just to make sure she's alright, she's fine, she's still whole.

"You're okay," he says once he's done, pushing her hair away from her eyes.

"I am. I'm okay," she repeats, ignoring the blush creeping up from neck up to her face. "So stop worrying," she softly punches him in the shoulder and finally a laugh cracks. He's smiling at her and she feels better.

He wants to say something else but he has to step back from her personal space as he sees Ed walking back to them. Danny pretends not to notice the strange looks Ed keeps throwing at him and Sam on their way back to the car. Sam, too focused on her phone conversation, does not notice a thing.


	19. Meeting And Unmeeting People

"The day has barely started and my clients are already giving me headaches," she sighs, a scowl forming on her pretty face. "They may be rich to death but there's only so much my sanity can take. I wish I never met them, honestly."

Danny places himself right behind her, his hands on her tensed shoulders. He starts massaging them.

"Yeah, Sam, that's the downside of meeting people in general—they can be fantastic or they can be horrible but you can't unmeet them. No matter what, you can't unmeet people and that's just too bad," he says in a joking tone.

But his words sound familiar, they make something in Sam's head click, they bring back a distant memory that she buried. Sam remembers being seven and hearing the same words leaving her mom's mouth. If she he tries hard enough, Sam is certain she can even remember the disdain in her mom's voice.

"Yeah, that's what my mom used to tell me: _'Be careful who you meet, Samantha, you can never unmeet them.'_ ," her tone is detached. The words just fly out of her mouth as if this was her only aim; being detached and unbothered. Danny doesn't say anything, he lets her speak, listens to her, but his hands never stop moving. She is still very tense, even under his touch. "She never said it but I _knew_ she was talking about my dad whenever she said that," she pauses and Danny doesn't have to look at her to know that her lips are tight and her face creased. She always looks like that when she's upset; like a child whose dreams had been smashed and burned right in front of her eyes. " _She_ hated him and _I_ never forgave her for that."

She remembers being seven and praying under her blankets at night, asking, _begging_ God to never, ever let her grow up as cold as her mother. But then she turned nine years old and she already lost all faith in the Tooth Fairy, Santa Claus and God. By nine, she already had sadness and sorrow that couldn't disappear in water or in air, no, Sam's pain was something hard and something that remained.

It is something that she carries with her forever.

The more Danny spends time with her, the more he can distinguish the colours of her feelings and the intensity of her emotions. At the bottom of her heart, there's a little girl who has been hurt too many times and around her heart, there's a monster, a beast guarding what's left of her innocent, naïve self.

Sam protects herself like secret and Danny thinks that's brave and saddening

"Yo! Sam! You coming?" One of her clients shouts and Sam blinks. She didn't notice that Danny had stopped massaging her shoulders and had stepped right in front of her, staring at her with concern, big, soft eyes glistening with worry.

"You okay?"

"Always," she says as she rolls her eyes. "Well, I gotta go. Thanks for the quick massage," she starts walking around him but Danny stops her with a hand on her arm.

"Wait."

She brushes her hair out her face. "Yeah?"

"I wouldn't want to unmeet you," His goofy smile looks like a love declaration and her heart hurts. It would hurt even more when she leaves. "I'm glad that I met you and I'm glad that you came working at the Montecito when you did. You know I like having you around, Marquez," he winks at her. "So I wouldn't want to unmeet you, Samantha Jane. _Never_."

There's a sort of endless sincerity that Danny emits and he makes her feel like he would tell her the secrets of the universe if she ever asks him to. So she smiles because that's all she can do that when he's around.

"That's so sweet but what did I say about trying to charm me, McCoy?"

Hands on her hips, her head titled to the side, she smirks at him and if she was into public display of affection she would have marked him with her lipstick and kissed the smile off of his face.

"I mean it," his smile doesn't waver because he feels like he's already won for the day: he made her smile and _happy_. "I really do, Sam."

"I know," she says, her eyes gazing intensely into his. "Thank you, Danny."


	20. His Favourite Bad Thing

What he sees make his blood run cold and he can feel icy tingle down his spine. There are suitcases all over her suite and she's in the middle of it, tidying, folding, packing.

 _She's leaving_.

The grip around his heart tightens until it nearly suffocates him, because everything clicks into place all at once. She's been avoided him for the past few days, and now she is packing and she would have left without saying anything, without saying goodbye to him if he hadn't showed up.

"You can't leave."

"I can do whatever I want to do, Danny."

"Sam..."

"I told you I would."

The lump in his throat is heavy and Danny realises how hard it is to breathe. She's making him breathless again but this time it's for all the wrong reasons.

"That was before, Sam! Things have changed ever since! You can't just leave us—you can't just leave me!" he feels anger bitting his skin. She's ripping his heart out of his chest and she's not even looking at him while doing so. "We're _'Sam-and-Danny'_. We're a team. Together."

"'Sam-and-Danny'," she repeats as if the sounds of it tastes sour on her tongue and she rolls her eyes. "Have you been talking to Delinda? Only she would come up with this nonsense."

He wants to move, to grab her, to shake her until she comes to her sense but his limbs seem anchored to the ground and he remains stuck where he is.

"You can't leave," he repeats, his tone sharp and stony. "You can't do that to me."

Danny's heart has beat for Sam the very first moment he saw her. It was fast and brutal, there was no slow burgeoning of feelings, there was no murky suspicion about her. There was just lots of mushy and weepy feelings that he kept secret and hidden so she wouldn't get scared, wouldn't leave. Feelings take so much room, so he let them engulf him, he let them overtake him, and now, he feels breathless with the abundance of them all inside and over his fragile, trembling heart.

She drops the piece of clothing she was folding and looks up to face him. She's angry at her, at him, at the world in general, but mostly, she's tired because it's just so exhausting loving him. _It hurts_. He's just so perfect and so good and she's just so bad for him. _She tried_. But the disaster, the tragedy, the ugly ending is just waiting around the corner, waiting for a misstep, for a failure from her and she just wants to keep his heart whole. She doesn't want to ruin him like she's ruined people before.

"Look, Danny, it was all fun and games till it lasted but now I'm done. And I am leaving and I do not need your permission to do so. You're nothing to me," her eyes are burning hot, and her harsh words struck him right where it hurts the most. "You're worthless to me, McCoy."

Danny wants to laugh at her because he knows she's lying. He's learned to read her, her and her pretty lies and her fake smiles. The lies are shining in the soft tears at the corner of her eyes, and in her pale lips that she has stopped biting. She's trying so hard to keep it together but she's nothing more than a ball of rage ready to burst open and destroy everything on her path, including herself.

"Stop lying, Sam!"

"I'm not lying!" she screams with all determination in the world so that she can believe in her own lie.

Sam has lied her whole life and sometimes she doesn't know what's true and what's fake anymore. But right now, in the middle of the room, with Danny a few steps away from her, she feels like her world would never turn right again if she had to be deprived of him. She thinks she would never be the same again, she could never laugh the same, feel the same or live the same if Danny wasn't part of her life anymore. But she can't just tell him that. She can't give him that much power over her.

"Just leave me alone, Danny."

"I can't do that."

"Why? Why can't you leave me alone? It's easy, you open the door and you walk out. That's it."

"I can't do that because you're everything to me, Sam!" he shouts at her because he feels like it's the only way for him to get through her. "You mean the world to me and _I love you_. That makes a difference, right?" he asks, breathing shakily, the admission, the confession taking him off guard, leaving him trembling and overwhelmed. "I don't want you to leave because I love you. I don't want to leave you alone and I don't want you to leave me alone. I need you here..."

His eyes travel across Sam's face where he can read surprise and disbelief and hope and fear. Her eyelashes tremble a lot, she's blinking very fast because she's terrified by his words, he knows because he is too. He wasn't supposed to say it like that. He hadn't planned to say it like that. Sam deserves better, so much better but he didn't have time to think about it because she's about to leave, about to leave him behind and he can't have that. Because to him, letting the person you love go is impossible. He can't stand the idea of letting her walk out of the Montecito.

She is quiet and the silence is defeating and cold.

"Sam? Just say something, please," he softly begs as he takes a step forward but she takes a step back and Danny is sure he has ruined everything because her head is down and her hands are turned into fists. "Sweetheart, look at me."

And when she refuses to raise her head, he lets his hand grasp her chin and gently forces her to look at him.

His heart drops when her huge brown and wet eyes met his.

She's crying, openly, because of him.

"Oh, Sam..." he says her name with so much fondness and tenderness as he anxiously wipes at her spilled tears, his gestures filled with panicked care are just so endearing, so genuine. And suddenly the overflow of feelings and emotions are making it hard for her to breath.

His feelings for her, her feelings for him, they're all taking the life out of her, crushing her lungs and her heart so she pushes him away. She pushes him away from her. From her heart.

She wants to put as much distance as possible between them so it would hurt less when she leaves. Because she will. He can't stop her.

"Sam?" his voice cracks, it sounds sad and hurt and the heart Sam swears doesn't exist breaks a little because this is the way people always sounded whenever they got too close to her. _Sad and hurt_. She had never wanted that for Danny. She should have never unpacked her bags she realises sadly.

"You love me," her voice is hoarse, and angry. So mad. There is nothing sweet about her at this instant. "You love me," she repeats like it is a foreign concept that she is having difficulties to grasp her head around.

"Yeah, I do."

She angrily wipes the tears with the back of her hand. "Then stop it."

"I can't do that. I'm in love with you."

He sounds so helpless, so hopeless and Sam wants to hurt him so her own pain would stop.

"I wasn't part of the plan. It doesn't make sense, Danny. You weren't supposed to fall in love with me, you weren't supposed to do that!"

Her tone is accusatory, she is shaking, burning with anger and Danny feels like she's about to break, explode into pieces, with the weight of all the things she didn't want to feel, all the things she wasn't ready to feel and the sight of it makes Danny's stomach twist.

"You were supposed to realise I was terrible and cold and empty. You were supposed to get bored and even get mad at some point. You were supposed to hate me. You were supposed to get over me!" she is yelling now and Danny is scared because he has never seen her like this and she's so small—too small—and the world is too big and he thinks he can't help her even if he tries his hardest. She is trapped in her own self hate, far too deep, far too gone. He can't do anything but love her anyway. "You weren't supposed to love me. You weren't supposed to do that to me!"

And tears come fresh anew, washing away the anger, letting room for sadness and emptiness.

"You weren't supposed to make me fall in love with you," her voice drops, the words fall between them and a sob wrecks her from within. "I hate you."

Danny can no longer ignore the pain in Sam's voice so he does what he always does whenever Sam is upset, he brings her into a hug. One hand around her waist, the other between her shoulder, where it feels the safest as he lets his head rest upon hers.

Sam feels fury and desperation slip out of her fingertips and she lets herself drown in Danny's warmth. Pressed against him, her nostrils is filled with his smell and perfume, calm slowly creeps up her body and she feels alright once again. He makes her feel okay when all she wants to do is break walls. She leans into him and sighs shakily.

"I'm sorry for ruining your plans, Samantha Jane," he sounds genuine, authentic, like he's always been with her. He would never lie to her. "But I love you, okay? And there's nothing you can do to change it. So get used to it, honey."

"I'm going to ruin you," she warns him but she grips the back of his shirt hard, face hiding into his hard and familiar chest. He feels like home, and she wants to scream for thinking about such cheesy things. "I'm going to ruin you."

He holds her tighter. _Closer_. If he could, he would have hidden her in his heart, away from the world, where nobody could hurt her, where he could love her forever and in secret.

"I don't care. I love you."

"I don't want to be in love with you. This is so wrong."

"It feels pretty right to me."

"Shut up. I'm a bad thing."

He drops a kiss on the top of her head. "Bad things are my favourites, Marquez, you're my favourite of them all. You are my favourite. I love you."

There's something ferocious and dangerous about love stories, something unstoppable. And Danny knows there are things that Sam isn't telling him, things that he won't like, things that will hurt him in the long run but at this moment, it doesn't seem important to him.

Everybody lives with something that is missing, something that is lacking and over time, everybody ends up taming the empty spot. They eventually conquer the emptiness, yet, Danny feels like he could never live without Sam, so if being in love with her means losing himself along the way then so be it. Because after love, there's nothing. Nothing worth living and suffering for.


	21. Don't Die Out There

_Danny is leaving. They've called him in, the Marines_. That's what Nessa said.

It never occurred to her that he might leave. She did not imagine any scenarios where he would be the one leaving and where she would be the one left behind.

Funny how life works.

* * *

 _Sometimes she lets this childish feeling run over her skin and wrap itself around her tightly, squeezing her, and in that moment, she allows herself to think that nothing is forever and that nothing is carved in destiny._ _And somehow everyone gets to be together: everything works out just fine even when it shouldn't and everyone gets a happy ending._

 _It's stupid but she wants one, a happy ending, or at least, a part of it._

* * *

She doesn't see him most of the day because he's busy and she knows Mary needs him so she stays away.

And when Delinda asks her if she's avoiding Danny on purpose she says no and she doesn't care if Nessa sees right through her lie.

* * *

 _"It's going to kill you."_

 _"What?"_

 _"Knowing me. Loving me. It's going to kill you."_

 _He shrugs and she bites into her apple, smirking._

 _With her white teeth, she could undress him and eat him alive and he would enjoy every second of it._

* * *

He's saying goodbye when she arrives. Joking, hugging and kissing everyone. She takes time to obverse him, to absorb every bit of him, from afar.

She knows she's going to miss him dearly and she may even cry and lose sleep over him and just thinking about it leaves her breathless.

Maybe she shouldn't have let him in, maybe she shouldn't have let him take so much room around her, she shouldn't have let him offer her so much and now her heart aches knowing he's going to leave and she's going to _feel_ and _be_ empty all over again.

* * *

 _"Here. All done," he says as he presses a pink band-aid on her forehead. For good measure, he kisses the band-aid and she glares at him. "You're so cute."_

 _"And you're an idiot," she tells him but the conviction isn't here. She's tired, her head hurts and she feels like kicking the man who crashed into her and flung her into a gambling machine head first. Now her new heels are ruined, there are blood stains on her favourite blouse and her skull won't stop_ _pounding._

 _"I might be an idiot but I'm your idiot."_

 _"Lucky me."_

 _"Oh come on, you love me," he pauses. "You love me, right?"_

 _"Nope."_

 _"I patched you up, so you gotta love me. Even if it's just a little."_

 _She rolls her eyes and lets her head rest on his shoulder._

 _"Maybe just a little then."_

 _He chuckles and ends up carrying her to bed._

 _"Love you tons, Sam."_

* * *

She forgot how much loving someone could make her vulnerable. The fear of losing everything, losing herself in the process—that leaves her aching and trembling. It's a terrible feeling that she has no control over and she wants to scream at someone, to break something but she can't because Danny is right in front of her, looking at her like he's about remake the world and offer it to her.

"Hi," he says, with a smile, twinkles in his eyes. His fingers brush the side of her face as he puts a lock of hair behind her ear.

She tilts her head, feeling overwhelmed by his intense stare. "Hi."

"I barely saw you today."

"I was busy."

"You've been avoiding me," he states and she doesn't bother denying it. "I missed you."

And suddenly, just like that, the air around them shift as if the universe knows that the game is over and that it is time for them to face the music.

She wets her lips and grabs at his shirt, squeezing a little and he takes a step forward, reading her gesture as an invitation and now they can feel each other's warmth. She raises her chin as he bends down a little, just enough to whisper in her ear.

"I'm going to kiss you. Right here, right now, in front of everyone. I'm making it—making us—official, okay?" he tells her, one hand on her waist, the other on the small of her back. They're soft but steady as if Danny is trying to prevent her from running away because there's no turning back now.

But Sam is done running.

"Okay," she tells him but it's her lips that touch his first. _She kissed him_.

His hands bring her even closer to him, and her nails scratch the line between his hair and his neck and she feels him shivering and smiling against her mouth. Sam swears she heard Delinda and Nessa squeal in delight.

"Now, everybody knows you have a reason to come back, Pretty Boy McCoy," she smiles at him and she feels good, warm, happy, at this moment. Maybe that's happiness; not an inaccessible dream, not an unkept promise, just the moment, _this moment_.

"Sure thing, Pretty Girl Marquez," and he kisses her again.

She does not complain when his warm hand searches for hers and his lips have barely left hers but he's already dragging her away.

* * *

 _"Stop looking at me like that!"_

 _"Like what?"_

 _"Like that!"_

 _"Oh you mean like I'm in love with the most beautiful woman in the world and like I want to kiss you forever?"_

 _"Yeah. Exactly like that. Stop it. It's creepy."_

 _She steals his hat but it's too big so when she puts it on, it slides down and covers her eyes. So she takes the hat off again and suddenly Danny is here, standing very close to her, looking like he wants something from her. She drops his hat and puts her arms around his neck, bringing him closer to her._

 _"Kiss me?" she asks._

 _And he does._

* * *

"I'll miss you," he confesses as he lets a trail of kisses on her neck. "I'll miss you so much."

She chuckles and brings his face around to kiss him firmly on the mouth. "Of course, you will."

* * *

 _He loves her, he loves everything about her. Her voice, her skin, her smell and taste._ _He loves her ability to pretend everything is okay when everything is wrong._

 _"You good?" he would ask._

 _And she would reply, "Always."_

 _He loves listening to her, every word she breathes, every sound she makes, because Sam is a girl of a few words. She talks so much but says just so little. So he listens to her with his eyes, with his hands, with his heart. He watches her facial expressions, he touches her cheeks, he loves her toughness. He likes to think he knows her better than anyone._

 _Danny wonders what made her so strong, what hurt her so bad that she thinks she needs to be strong all the time._

* * *

They made love all night and now Sam is pretty certain she has a heart, a big one, and she feels confused, frightened and distressed from the largeness and weakness of it.

"Don't die out there, okay?" her head is resting on his chest, her fingers tracing meaningful shapes on his skin; they go from _"I love you"_ to _"be careful"_ to _"don't come back dead"_. She doesn't say them out but he hears them loud and clear none the less. He feels them settling in his bones, quaking him inside out, as if she were shouting them, as if she wanted to break him, as if she was trying to turn him into crumbs so he wouldn't be able to leave. "Just don't die."

"Okay. I promise," he takes her small hand in his, kissing the tip of each finger, then he grabs her face where he drops an infinity of kisses on every inch of her soft skin. "I love you."

* * *

 _He wants to count her scars, the ones he couldn't see, the ones she pretends don't exist._

 _He wants to know where it hurts and where it doesn't. He wants to know the line where strong-Sam and fragile-Sam meet._

 _Sam says she doesn't need fixing._ _Danny says it's not about fixing but about sharing the pain, to make it more bearable._

 _Then, she yells at him, telling him to stop putting his nose in her business._ _He yells back. And t_ _he screaming match goes on until it's over and she leaves, slamming the door behind her._

 _She refuses to talk to him for three days following their fight._

 _Danny felt like it was the three longest days of his life._

* * *

"You'll miss me too, right?"

"Yeah," she bends down to kiss him again and Danny doesn't comment on the tear that softly lands on his cheek.

When Sam is certain he's fallen asleep, she leaves her side of the bed and snuggles against him, then she murmurs a ridiculously tiny and soft _"I love you too,"_ in his ear.

* * *

 _"You're not leaving anymore, right?" he asks her, his toothbrush in his mouth as he watches her putting some make-up on._

 _She doesn't turn around but she looks at his reflection in the mirror. "Depends."_

 _"On what?"_

 _"_ You _. I'm staying as long as you're here. You're the one who brought me here after all."_

 _He finishes brushing his teeth and spats the whole thing in the sink. He dries his face with a towel and turns towards her. "What if I leave?"_

 _Her lipstick stops in the middle of her upper lip and she frowns a little. She looks adorable, he thinks. "I'll leave too, I suppose."_

 _"With me?" he presses, hoping she would say yes but always knowing she won't._

 _She rolls her eyes and resuming the colouring of her lips. "Don't push it, McCoy._ _I'm not a follower. I go where I want to go. You know that."_

 _He nods as he expected nothing less from her._

 _"I'm not planning on leaving Vegas anytime soon, though, Sam."_

 _She sets her lipstick down and turns to kiss him on the lips. "Good 'cause packing sucks and I don't wanna do it again anytime soon."_


	22. It's Too Early

It's too early.

They're sitting on the terrace of the hôtel. Delinda is drinking her coffee, Mary is playing with the chocolate chips on her muffin, and Sam, from where she's sitting, she can see all the flowers, on the wall, on the ground, on the terrace rail. There are lots of jasmin, small geraniums there and then, and the perfume of lavender is so strong that Sam can feel her nose already itching.

"Today's such a pleasant day," Delinda smiles as she stirs her coffee with a spoon.

And it's true. It's barely eight in the morning, and the sun is already up, big and bright in the cloudless sky. The girl keeps babbling on how nice the weather is while Sam mentally checks everything she has to do today, and she's already tired for the rest of the day. She is certain that by noon, her yesterday's headache will come back.

Then, there's Mary who is looking at her like she's a fragile little thing, like she's waiting for her to have a meltdown. She has been doing that a lot recently—looking at her, watching over her and Sam knows it's Danny who put her on Sam-duty. It's ridiculous. She should be on Mary-duty. The poor girl has huge shadows under her eyes and the tips of her fingers are all torn and bloody. It's ugly. Mary worries too much about Danny. He wouldn't want that. Sam knows that because he told her that before leaving.

Finally, Mary asks, "How are you, Sam?"

"Fine. Always fine. You, however, you look like crap so you need to sleep. And you also need to get rid of this nasty habit of biting your nails, it's not pretty."

Mary doesn't say anything but she looks at her nails and grimaces at the sight. It's Delinda who speaks for her. "That's rude, Sam."

"Yeah and it's too early to be that rude, girl," Nessa interrupts as she sits down in the chair next to Sam's. "You're way nicer when Danny's around, Sam. Isn't she?" she asks the girls and while Delinda nods eagerly, Mary looks down with a soft smile.

Sam wonders if Danny ever talked to Mary about her, about them. He must have. She's his best friend. She would have talked about Danny to her best friend if she had one. But Sam talks _about_ Danny _with_ Danny, so she supposes that makes him her best friend as well as boyfriend? And Sam thinks that's dumb.

She rolls her eyes. "Shut up, Ness."

Nessa's eating an apple, chewing it nervously and Sam notices that in her other hand, Nessa is holding a tea cup that smells like nothing but tea.

"Nice way to start your morning," she says as she recognises the pinkish colour of the rosé.

"Shut up, Sam," Nessa hisses and Sam chuckles as she sips at her own coffee.

Sam doesn't comment on the hickey on her neck or on the faint trembling on her hand or on the redness of her eyes. Nessa is having a bad morning and she'll probably have a bad day and Sam isn't in the mood to make it worse.

"Do you guys think Danny—" Mary pauses and Sam already knows what she's going to ask before she says it. "Do you think he's alright, out there? He hasn't called, not even once. And well, you know, I'm a worrier so I'm worried. We would know if he wasn't alright? I mean Ed would know and would tell us, right?"

Mary fidgets on her seat and there are holes all over her muffin and crumbs all around it, and for one tiny second, Sam imagines Danny's body filled with holes and stained with blood and she cringes at the picture. She blinks it away, takes a deep breath.

"I'm sure he is fine. Plus, Dad says he's good, one of the best even. He'll be alright," Delinda says, rubbing Mary's back to soothe her worry away.

Mary nods and smiles but then, her lips start trembling and Sam looks away. Mary is about to cry, and it's way too early for this, so Sam takes another sip of her coffee, waits for it to pass. It always does.

She can see Nessa glaring at her from the corner of her eye and she wants to flip her off because she's trying to be nice, she _is_ being nice by not saying anything, by not being her usual and mean self.

"We all miss him, Mary, but as D. said I'm sure he's perfectly fine, right, Sam?" Nessa elbows her, _hard_ , and Sam wants to hit her in return.

"Sure. Danny's a big boy. He is smart enough not to get killed while trying to defend his country," that's what she says and Nessa shakes her head at her, disappointment and judgement in the brown of her eyes and in the thin line of her lips.

Sam wants to finish her coffee but it's cold now and the sun is hurting her eyes or maybe it's the loneliness that making them ache. It's too early to have her feelings crushing her heart and laughing at her while doing so.

She closes her eyes, counts to ten, and when she opens them up again, and it's just her and Mary at the table.

Nessa has left her cup of rosé behind, and Sam finds herself drinking it. The taste is disgusting but the soft burning in her throat helps her ignore how much her heart is hurting, how much she misses Danny. And now, the lavender scent is getting to her head, and she curses under her breath. Next time Delinda wakes her earlier than necessary and drags her onto the terrace, she will say no. Sam swears she will tackle the girl if she has to.

"I miss Danny. You miss him too, I know you do. That's a strange feeling, isn't it? Missing someone and never wanting to be without that particular someone," Mary asks as she dabs the underside of her eyes with a tissue and Sam feels a bit bad.

She feels bad for being mean to her, not that she's meaner to Mary than to anyone else, but Mary is nicer than most people, so she feels bad for that. Mostly, she feels bad for taking Danny. He's been Mary's for so long and now he's still Mary's but he's also Sam's, so she feels bad for that. It's too early for feeling that bad. She really should have slept in.

"I think I should apologise."

"For what?"

"Stealing the love of your life I guess," Sam blurs out, looking uncomfortable and Mary smiles, amicably, reassuringly, and Sam thinks that's awfully sweet of her. Mary is sweet and Sam is not, and for the love of god, she cannot, won't understand how Danny can love two things that are so utterly different.

Danny is weird.

"You didn't. Danny is still… Danny. He's still my best friend."

"Yeah but you two dated. You love him, _like_ a lot."

"I do, with all my heart, and forever," there's so much honesty, so much beauty in her tone, as if she is reciting words she had reharsed all her life, as if suddenly, she is dressed in white and speaking at her own wedding. White would suit her, Sam is sure. "Danny became what I've always hoped for him."

"He became what? Somebody else's boyfriend?" Sam jokes and that makes Mary laugh.

" _A great man_ ," Mary answers, smiling, her eyes full of pride. "Danny became a great man. I'm glad that he has you because you're my friend. You know that, right?" Mary waits for Sam to nod before continuing. "And because he loves you. You're good for each other. You bring out his crazy side and he brings out your soft side."

"I'm not soft."

"Of course, you're not, sweetheart," Mary indulges her, rolling her eyes, and Sam offers her a smile, a real one, ones of those Danny loved and told her about. "You love him, don't you?"

Sam looks up, and the sky seems big and infinite, a bit like her affection for Danny. Loving Danny is like walking on the edge of a cliff, on her tiptoes, with her eyes closed and a smile on her face.

Loving Danny makes her a weak and that scares the shit out of her. She still thinks that love is dumb and that only dumb people fall in love but it's too late now, she has fallen for Danny, head and heart first. There's no turning back from that.

So, she blinks and she thinks today seems like a good day to be honest, so she looks at Mary and tells her, "Yeah, I love him."


	23. To Prague With Alcohol & Cigarettes

She didn't feel well, and when she asked Ed for a few days off, he looked at her in a weird way, like he _cared_. Then he patted her cheek, told her to be careful wherever she was going and to come back when she feels like _herself_ again.

The next day, she was in Prague, drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes like a true European.

She hates Prague.

* * *

Her phone keeps ringing and she tries hard to ignore it. But Delinda keeps calling and Sam is a bit bored so she picks it up, and listens to Delinda babbling on what a bad friend she is for missing their almost-daily-breakfast time together, for taking Nessa's side during their weekly quarrel, for leaving without telling her. Yet all she hears is that she's been gone for barely three days and that Delinda misses her and the thought of it makes her smile a little.

"What are you doing in Prague?"

"How do you know I'm in Prague?"

"I asked Mike to track your phone."

"Hm."

Sam doesn't say what she's doing in Europe, she doesn't say when she's coming back to Vegas, and then Delinda gets mad because she raises her tone and she abruptly hangs up on her.

She drops her phone on the bed, opens the window of her hotel room and the smell of rain hits her nostrils. It rained all night, and now, there's water on the paving stone and it glistens, it's bright, because the sun is rising and the street outside her hotel is waking up too. Soon, there will be multicoloured umbrellas, loud music and people dancing in the puddles.

She leans on the balustrade and smokes her first cigarette of the day.

* * *

The next day, she realises that Prague reminds her too much of _him_ and her heart quivers.

* * *

The night is soft and Sam is alone.

She closes her eyes to stop thinking, to calm her nerves. It's too hot in there, and she wants to smoke. She is starting to remember why Casey loves Prague so much and the urge to strangle him tingles her fingers. She hates herself for feeling anything concerning Casey.

This thing, her leaving, it was supposed to be like a vacation. But everything smells like past mistakes and cheap whiskey. She misses Danny a lot and hopes he's not dead. She would be sad if he was and she would cry for him.

She takes a cigarette, leaves the hotel, and goes for a walk. When she comes back, she's all wet and cold, and the bath she takes is too hot. She walks out of the bathtub clean, red and hurt. That night she cries a lot and she dreams of Casey.

In the morning, she throws up all her wine. She feels empty and she doesn't have any cigarettes anymore.

* * *

Delinda is still not speaking to her, so it's Nessa she gets on the phone and Nessa says, "I want your skinny ass back in Vegas by tomorrow night 'cause D. is insufferable and you're the only one that can tame her."

"Sorry, I don't feel like seeing your sad asses yet," Sam tells her, cigarette between her teeth, her trembling fingers tapping on her glass of wine.

Then Nessa starts yelling, she curses a lot and Sam says she'll be back in three days to shut her up.

Three days later, she's still in Prague, cigarettes ashes on her eyelashes and her head in the toilet.

* * *

 _Prague_. She is supposed to get closure here. But all she gets are regrets and headaches. She loves _him_ , but she's not sure who that _him_ is.

* * *

Sam is drinking her second bottle of champagne when Delinda calls. It's almost noon, the sun is hitting against the shutters and the shining light is hurting her eyes. She always forgets to draw the curtains. Danny would have reminded her to do so. Casey too, when she thinks about it. It's funny.

"I got married."

"What the fuck, Sam? What did you do?"

"I got married," Sam blurs out again and she laughs because the champagne tastes nice, and the sheets feel expensive against her skin. "Years ago. I got married. And that was a bad idea. Never get married, Delinda, it sucks."

Sam is looking at the ceiling. She hasn't paid much attention to the ceiling but she's sure it's beautiful, everything is beautiful in Prague. Casey was beautiful in Prague, she remembers. But the ceiling, she can't really see it because her sight is wet and blurred. There's too much tears in her eyes and she wants to drown in them. She lets the glass fall down, the liquid stains the carpet, and Sam doesn't care much. She hides herself in the largeness, in the coldness of the bed.

"He's never wanted to sign the divorce papers."

"Sam..."

"He's an asshole."

" _Sam_..."

"I've asked. Many times. But every time he said no. I didn't care. I'm Samantha Marquez, of course I didn't care. I left. Lived my life... Then Danny came long," she pauses, blinks fast and she feels like crying again. "I told him I would break his heart. He should have listened."

Delinda waits that Sam calms down because even miles away she can hear it, Sam is breathless. Eventually, Delinda asks, in a soft tone. "What happened in Prague, honey?"

Sam doesn't answer straightaway and Delinda thinks she may have fallen asleep, but then Sam speaks with a tiny voice, "I remembered I still loved my husband," she confesses as if it is a secret, as if she's scared. "I remember loving him, Delinda. But I love Danny too. I love Danny so much and it's killing me. This is such a big mess."

Delinda curses under her breath and Sam closes her eyes. She feels nauseous and she doesn't want to move.

She doesn't want to go back home.

* * *

She stays in Prague a bit longer so that she can hate herself a bit more.

She buys another packet of cigarettes. She finishes them in one day and half, then she throws away her lighter. She stops crying because she looks ridiculous and ugly when she does.

The day before leaving she puts on some make-up, she paints her lips with red and she sees _Sam_ in the mirror and for the first time since she arrived here, she smiles for real.

She is pretty again.

* * *

She's home two days later and it's Delinda who drives her back to the hotel. They don't talk about Prague, about her meltdown, or about her marriage. Sam thinks Delinda is her best friend now.

They have breakfast together the next morning, on the terrace, and Sam feels like herself again, never mind her allergies and her cold coffee.


	24. What's Left Of The War

Everyone is happy Danny's back. Mary is crying, Nessa and Delinda keep hugging him, Mike is already trading jokes and Ed is awkward and only pats him on the back. Sam stands back, observes the whole scene. Danny looks out of place, a bit lost, a bit sad, and Sam wonders what happened _there_.

He doesn't smile much, but when he does, it's a bit genuine, a bit forced, and it's like there's a ghost shadowing Danny.

When everybody leaves, she grabs his hands, holds them near her chest, where her heart beats fast and strong, and she presses a sweet, tender kiss on his mouth. In return, he kisses her nose, brushes the hair off her face and says, "I missed you the most."

He smiles at her but there's no sparkle in his eyes, no warmth in his lips, and Sam thinks some parts of Danny died over there.

* * *

He's not really her Danny. He is what was left of the war, Sam thinks and she bits her lips.

His skin is darker but him, Danny, he's pale. His lips are chapped, his fingers are flayed, she can feel them on her hips because he is holding them, _her_ , too tightly, kissing her too brutally. _It hurts_. _He_ 's hurting her. She wants to tell him but she doesn't want the kiss to stop because she missed him, a lot, and now he's back, and she just needs him close to her, even if it hurts.

She deepens the kiss and he squeezes her harder. She doesn't care if she'll have bruises.

* * *

"Ed is looking for you," she says as she closes the door of the storeroom.

"I know."

She hides here sometimes, when her whales are driving her crazy or when her feet hurt too much and she needs to take off her heels, or when she fights with Danny and she's too stubborn to make the first step.

She sits down next to him. "Why are you hiding from him?"

"He wants me to go to sleep."

"He's worried Danny," Sam tells him as she plays with his fingers. They feel rough and callused under her touch and she kisses the palm of his hand. "You look tired."

"I'm not tired."

She lets go of his hand and turns her face to him. "I'm worried too."

"Don't be," he kisses her forehead to erase the crease on her brow, to soothe her concern away. "I'm fine."

"Okay," she says, even if she doesn't believe him.

She leans into his side. He brings her closer to him, and he kisses the top of her head. She hears him let out a shaky breath, she feels him tremble against her but she doesn't say anything.

* * *

Danny is acting off and Sam doesn't know how to deal. She wants to smoke but her bad habit, she left it in Prague. So she settles for a glass of wine and she decides to wait a hour before looking for her boyfriend. When she has Mike look for him and he tells her that Danny is not in the casino, Sam turns around and leaves abruptly with no explication.

* * *

She finds him at their special place, where they kissed the very first time, where she thought she could love him for a lifetime. Now he looks ten years older, ten times colder, and he's facing away from her and Sam thinks he wants her gone, away from here, away from him.

"I've been looking for you," she tells him.

He doesn't meet her eyes when he replies, "I wanted to be left alone. Could you leave me alone, please?"

He has darkness under his eyes, he has it in his eyes too, and Sam thinks he may need to cry a little but he mostly needs to sleep a lot. But she doesn't voice her thoughts. She just wants to go because it's starting to rain, and she doesn't like having her hair wet but she refuses to leave him alone because she remembers his words _"I love you. I don't want to leave you alone and I don't want you to leave me alone"._

So she takes off her jacket, lies it out on the grass and sits on it as she waits for him to be _him_ again.

* * *

"You're such a stubborn little thing."

He is crouched before her and wipes the rain on her lips. She's wet and shaking all over. Danny finds her extremely beautiful, with her hair heavy with water and the drops of rain on her eyelashes. His heart swells with love for this woman. He really missed her there.

"So I've been told," her teeth are chattering and she lets her head rest against his shoulder. She wants his warmth but he's as cold as she is. Sam hopes that somehow, the rain, all this water washed away his worries and his sadness. Deeply, she just hopes the war didn't break him entirely, she just hopes there's still some bits of her Danny in here. "Can we go home now?" she asks as her arms wrap themselves around his neck.

He doesn't want to, not yet, but her cool lips against his neck have him feel hot all over again and all he can say is yes, we're going home.

* * *

He stays in her suite, in her bed, and it's her arms that feel like home. She does most of the talking, and he listens to her carefully as he lets his fingers lost themselves in her long and damp hair. Later, he watches her sleep, counts her eyelashes and caresses the edges of her face. Before the sunrise, he whispers how much he loves her and how important she is to him.

When she wakes up, she is alone.

* * *

xxx

AN: I've never apologised for all the typos I've made so far and we'll probably continue making, therefore, I apologise for the terrible typos, dear people. I can't english most of the time because it's not my language. Just tell me if/where I need to fix something and I'll do it.

The previous chapter, about Prague, it's all true. I mean, I was in Prague two weeks ago, and I cried all week about my boyfriend. Prague is beautiful when you're not crying and drinking cheap alcohol. Go to Prague, people. :p


	25. Mediā Nocte

In the darkness of the suite, none of them sleep well.

Danny has the blood and the loss of the war haunting his lightless dreams. Sam, at night, she can hear her secrets floating in the room, dancing on her skin, she can hear them mocking her, squeezing her heart but in reality, it's just Danny, with his eyes closed and his short breath, holding onto her, clenching at her.

So she moves up a bit, kisses the place where his jaw and neck meet, and waits for him to calm down. Fond smile curls onto her lips as soon as his body relaxes in his sleep. She moves herself closer to him to curl up around his frame and absorb the warmth that has become so familiar to her. His automatic response to her proximity sends tingles all over her skin; his heavy arm wraps itself around her waist, the brush of his lips against her hair even with nightmares and demons clouding his mind. She sighs and she finally closes her eyes.

And if her secrets follow her, shadow her even in her sleep, she pretends that she doesn't care, and if she could, she would bury them forever.


	26. The Stuff We Break And Cannot Fix

Sam seems to be straight out from the thirties, with her long black dress, her plastered down hair and her soon-to-be red lips. She smells like peaches and Danny wants to eat her. He thinks she's splendid in black but he's certain she would take his breath away in white so he asks, "What's your opinion on marriage?"

The question takes her off guard, her lipstick, her favourite, falls in the sink, breaks in half and Sam can see the premisses of a disaster, of a bad ending taking shapes on the white of the ceramic.

She turns on the water, tries to clean the mess she just made. "Why are you asking?"

Danny is in the doorway of the bathroom, watching her every move in the mirror. He shrugs, waits for an answer instead of a question and all he gets from her is silence and indifference.

He clears his throat.

"I think—I think marriage is great. As long as you find the right person to get marry to I suppose," he looks at her reflection as he searches for his words. "When I was fighting, you know, trying to stay alive and all, when I was fighting for my life, all I could think about was: _"I don't want to die. Not here, not now. I wanna go back home, hug my family and kiss my girl"_. There were days when things weren't too bad but there were days when everything was all dark and red. And I needed something to feel better, to feel happier. I needed someone. So I would think of you, imagine you in bright white, looking precious and gorgeous. When things got tough, when I was terrified to die, I imagined you as my wife so if I had died, I would have gone happy in a way. I just wanted you to be my wife before I die. It's silly, isn't it?"

Danny, when he was little, he used to play pretend with his dad, he used to play "Cops and Thieves", "Cowboys and Indians" and sometimes, he would play the "Game of War" where sometimes he died, where sometimes he lived, and where the blood and tears were all fake and harmless. But there, in Iraq, it was all too real, too cruel. And Death tried to take him, to choke him but it's _her,_ with her large eyes and her large smile, it's the entirety of Sam, her petiteness and highness that saved him, that brought him back. She doesn't even know that.

"Mostly I just missed you, Sam," he confesses with a smile, sincere and lovely.

He's precious, too precious, too bad she's going to wreck him and Sam has to bite her tongue to keep her composure.

She's too tense, too scared, and it's too late when she realises she's crushed the piece of lipstick with her fingers. Now, the sink is all red and wet and pasty and Sam, brilliant, arrogant Sam, feels guilt rising up, chewing her up, because she just ruined her favourite lipstick and she's about to ruin her favourite person as well and she thinks after all of this, after the breakup and the heartache, she's going to smoke and drink and sleep. She won't cry about it, no, the weak, crying girl, she locked her up in the hôtel room in Prague. She left her there, buried her.

She doesn't turn around, doesn't dare. She knows her facade, her pretence, everything will shatter the moment she looks him in the eyes, so she settles for his reflection when she says, "I'm somebody else's wife already."

"What?"

He doesn't understand, doesn't grasp the meaning behind her words, or maybe he didn't want to.

"I'm married, Danny."

And just like that, the stars died out in his eyes. He's holding his breath, she knows, she sees him, as if he's waiting for her to tell him that it's just a joke, just a game, that she was just _pretending_ , because she's good at pretending. But months have gone by, together they've laughed and fought, and it turns out, she's not that good at pretending anymore, not when _he_ 's around, not when it's about _him_.

"I'm married. I've been married for awhile now. I should have told you. I'm sorry," she tells him but she still won't meet his eyes. Instead, she keeps rubbing the red off the ceramic of the sink, she rubs hard, too hard, and she breaks her nail, but she doesn't hiss, doesn't wince because she thinks she just deserves that much for breaking his heart.

"I should have told you way before you—"

"Before what? Before _we_ got involved? Before _I_ got feelings for _you_? Before it became too inconvenient for _your marriage_? Before _I_ became an inconvenience to _you_?"

It's the quick anger, the hot temper that make her turn around to glare at him.

"Shut up! You've never been an inconvenience to me. Not once I made you feel like you were, so _shut up!_ " she snaps.

Sure, he could be a pain in the ass more often than not, but he is her pain in the ass. She cares for him like she's never cared for anyone else before, and he's questioning them, _her feelings_ , doubting them even, and she wants to hit him, hit his heart, even it is all cracked and crushed already.

"Really? Could have fooled me there, _Samantha_ ," there's so much venom in his tone, in the way he pronounces her name that Sam may have cried if she were that fragile. "It was all fun and games but now you're just done playing, huh?"

"I wasn't playing, Danny!"

"You weren't honest, Sam! You've never been, right? But you've warned me, many times, so I guess it's all my fault then."

Sam closes her lips hard and turns back around, her hands holding onto the counter edges, her fingers covered with mashed lipstick staining the whiteness with red and regrets. Danny clearly realises he just hurt her feelings, and deep down, he regrets it, but refuses to dwell on it. He's furious at her.

"I'm sorry," she says again and he knows she means it because her voice, the voice he adores so dearly, cracked and now her eyes are closed, as if she wouldn't allow herself to cry, not in front of him.

He bits his lip. _Sam_. Danny loves her too much that it hurts, a lot, like right now. His love for her takes too much place in his heart and he doesn't mind, didn't mind but now all he understands is that it doesn't matter, it's not enough because she's married. She's married which means she's somebody else's, to love. _Not_ his. _Never_ his.

He doesn't know what to say, what to feel, he wants to hate her, wants to smash his feelings for her, and throw them at her face. But she looks sorry, and delicate, and frail under the light of the bathroom. She's shaking a little and the desire to embrace her, to soothe her comes to him naturally. _It hurts_. He wants it to stop hurting, so in the end, he just turns around, grabs his jacket and slams the door of her suite on his way out.

* * *

xxx

AN: I'm sad. Sam and Danny broke up.


	27. The Universe In A Mess

The news about her marriage travels fast and now everybody looks at her like _la garce_ she is. They murmur she must have her heart darker than her lips for treating Danny like that. They look at her for the horrible person she is and quite frankly, she doesn't mind, doesn't care.

The thing is it's Danny who doesn't talk to her or look at her anymore and she thinks that's just the worse.

* * *

Sam is still _Sam_ , she still smiles, still parades, still glows like the breakup and the heartache didn't affect her at all. Danny realises she never needed him quite enough and every time he thinks about it it feels like his heart slows down to take the blow. As always, she still lets him breathless.

"Maybe you should go down there and speak to her, you know. I'm actually tired of seeing you watch those damn screens all day long," Mike tells him and Danny doesn't reply, keeps his eyes on the screen, where he can see her.

Sam is at the craps table, watching over her clients and Danny can her speaking—probably gossiping—with Nessa and Danny wonders if she would talk about him, about them if Nessa asks her because Nessa would. Eventually.

Danny knows Mary tried to talk to Sam. She tried to be strong and firm on Danny's behalf, because Sam, how dare she, she broke her best friend's heart, so she needed to give Sam a piece of her mind, but Delinda, sweet girl, she saw the whole thing, and said Sam found Mary very adorable and very amusing but she had no time for this nonsense so she patted Mary's cheek and walked away, leaving Mary with her mouth half-open and her face outraged. And Danny laughed because, of course, Sam would be unimpressed, unbothered by Mary's little show, but Danny appreciated the gesture all the same. So he hugged Mary, kissed her head and reassured her, telling her that she could still be friends with Sam, that he didn't mind, because Sam needs friends just as much he does, even if she says and acts like she doesn't. He still knows her better than most, just not as much as he thought he did.

"I've said what I had to said. There's nothing more to add, Mike," Danny says, as he leans into his chair, yet his eyes are still on Sam.

She is strutting around, across the casino floor, moving from whales to whales. She's wearing a green dress, his favourite, and her hair is up in a messy but classy bun and Danny knows she did it on purpose, dressing like that, because she knew how much he loves it when she wears this colour, when she looks so dainty and tasty. She still has so much effect on him, and it should be forbidden. She shouldn't be allowed to be so pretty while he can't hold her, kiss her because she is not his to hold and kiss.

"But you love her, man," Mikes points out.

Danny takes his eyes off Sam and turns his face to Mike, his eyebrows raised. "She is _married_. And I've been just fine on my own."

But at night, when Danny wakes up from his nightmares, he still turns around, his hands reaching out for Sam, seeking for her cold skin but paradoxically warm comfort but all his fingers always touch are nothing but thin air. They've been apart from barely three weeks and he misses her like crazy. Yet, it doesn't seem like she misses him much. He tries not to let it bother him too much.

"She lied to me."

"She lied to all of us. It's Sam. That's what she does."

"So you're saying it's okay?" Danny asks, not understand Mike's logics.

Mike shakes his head. "Nah. I'm just saying she had _her_ reasons for doing it, for lying. Everybody has reasons for lying. Maybe her reasons were not good reasons but she still had her reasons," Mikes knows Danny isn't really listening to him because his eyes are focused on Sam's form again so he just repeats. "You still love her."

Danny shrugs, like it doesn't matter, like she doesn't matter, but she did, _so much_. She meant so much to him, still does, and that's why sometimes it hurts to breath because she left prints on his heart, then she smashed it, leaving him with a piece missing and with the other piece bleeding.

"It'll go away," he tells Mike but he doesn't mean any of the words that escape his mouth.

He doesn't think his love for Sam will go away, he is certain it won't, but a part of him, a tiny and scared part of him dreads that it might happen. Because Sam, he swore he would love her forever, he swore he could, but her lie, her big and ugly lie, ruined everything. She left his universe in a mess, but, he's not sure he wants it to be _unmessy_ yet. He feels like it's too early, too soon to wipe everything away and put it in a box. Danny doesn't want to clean the mess she made with his heart, he doesn't wish for it to be fixed yet, because it would mean leaving his story, their love story, behind and he is not sure he can't do that. He doesn't want to put Sam in a box and forget about her.

"I don't want it to go away. I don't want to stop loving her," Danny admits and his hand reaches for something in his pocket: a picture of him and Sam, in the desert, the day they had a flat tyre.

On the photograph, she appears so unguarded, so candid and at that moment, the urge to kiss her engulfed him, so he did kiss her and when his lips left hers, she kept her eyes closed for a little longer and she looked simply luminous. That makes it his favourite memory of her.

Mike smiles sympathetically at him and taps his shoulder as he rises from his chair. "That's what I thought. It'll work out. I don't know how or why but it will work out. Weirdly, Sam and you are just...you guys are _you_. You will work something out. I'm rooting for you and Sam. And anyway, there's a bet about you two," Mike informs him with a smirk and now Danny is looking at him, confusion and curiosity written on his face. "People have been betting on how long you and Sam will last before you start doing the dirty again."

Danny rolls his eyes as he smiles at Mike's answer and he is certain Sam would find the bet, if she doesn't know about it yet, stupid and hilarious.


	28. Moving On But Still

Sam thinks it's a good time, a good place to talk to Danny. Jordan and Woody just left, and now it's just them at the Montecito entrance, them and the random people walking in and out of the casino, them and the unsaid things and their buried feelings.

"Danny..." she starts

"Yeah?"

He turns to look at her, his hands in his pockets, and his tie loose. For a second she wonders if it's Jordan who did it, if she played with his tie, because Sam knows, it's Mike who told her that Danny kissed the woman, and she swallows down the hot jealousy because she has no say in his life anymore, she has no right on his heart anymore. This is none of her business. So she lets her eyes meet his and plays indifference.

"I wanted to say thank you for what you did on the plane. It was between me and my whale and you didn't have to get involved but you did, and well... thank you. I appreciated it, you having my back and all," she's scratching her eyebrow, almost embarrassed.

But she sounds genuine, sincere, thankful even, and Danny offers her a soft smile in return, looking down at her with gentleness in his brown eyes.

"No problem."

He wants to touch her, to hold her, but all he does is brush some of her hair off her face with slow, careful movements, tucking it behind her ear, her skin cold against his warm fingers. Her breath hitches and he pretends not to notice.

"I wasn't going to let him hurt you, Sam… I would never let anyone hurt you," he adds as he removes his fingers off her. "Even if we're not together anymore."

She nods, looks away, suddenly uncomfortable with the attention is giving her. Her sight lands on a couple waiting a few stairs below. They're holding hands, the woman laughing at whatever the man said, then he lowers his head to press his lips upon the woman's.

Sam turns back to Danny and she notices he too was looking at the couple. Her eyes briefly grazes at his lips and she realises she misses him more than she lets it show. She misses his unfunny jokes, his weird dance moves and his faint stubble against her skin in the morning. Mostly, she misses her friend. If she can't have him as boyfriend, she still wants, needs him as her friend.

She takes a shaky breath before speaking.

"I don't want you to be angry at me anymore. I know I screwed up, I fucked up. And being sorry doesn't fix anything but I _still_ am. I _am_ sorry, Danny," she tries to get control of her breath, even curve her trembling lips into something resembling a smile. "I'm not asking you to forgive me, or to forget but can we just put our messy love story behind and be friends again? I miss my favourite friend."

Sam doesn't have green eyes but still, she has hope glistening in her brown orbs. She's also a bit anxious, a bit nervous because her teeth are chewing her lower lip, and she is looking at him with fear, fear of rejection, fear of abandon? He doesn't know but doesn't like it. Sam, Danny loves her confident and brillant.

So he smiles at her, slowly, wholly, to appease her worry and gently, with his thumb, he presses away the crease in the middle of her brow. He doesn't like it when she frowns, it makes her look too serious, too dangerous. She's far cuter when she is not tense.

"We're still friends," he tells her, looking at her in the eyes as if to make her understand that he means it, as if to make her understand she still means an awful lot to him. Then he grasps her hands, raises them to his lips, and brushes tender kisses along her knuckles, never once taking his eyes off of her. "We're still Sam-and-Danny."

"Yeah?" For reason Sam finds her eyes brimming with tears when she asks and she curses silently. Danny still can make her emotions go all over the place, and she swears, someday she'd kick him for making her feel so much all at once.

"Yep," he confirms with a caring tone and soft eyes. He lets go of one of her hands to edge a tear off the corner of her eyes with his thumb. "We're infinite, remember?"

"Yeah, we are," she says, feeling his warmth engulfing her just by holding her hand in his. She wants to entwine their fingers together, but she refuses to move, scared to ruin the moment, a moment she's been craving for weeks. "You're still my guy."

He chuckles. "Good. 'Cause you're still my girl."

Eventually he lets go and when he does, she still can feel him on her, the sensation tingles the tips of her fingers, it makes her feel giddy and stupid. Her lips quirks, almost like a smile.

"See you around, then, Pretty Girl Marquez," he winks at her, and starts walking away from her.

She waves at him. "Sure, see you around, Pretty Boy McCoy."

She takes a deep breath, and her heart no longer feels heavy in her chest. She's just got her friend back.


	29. Stupidities and Bad Jokes

He is angry.

Angry at Sam for having a knack for getting into trouble. Angry at Sam for making Ed doubt her loyalty. Angry at Ed for making him follow Sam as if she isn't worth their trust. Angry at Sam for making _him_ doubt because deep down, Danny knows her, he knows that at the end of the day, Sam's loyalty lies with her. Utterly and solely. But still he refuses to believe that she would ever do anything to hurt them, to hurt him.

Still, he's angry at her. Because she drives him crazy with her stupidities and her nonchalance about everything that could get her killed.

Yet, he wanted to go with her, because he promised, promised her that he wouldn't let anything happen to her. And something might happen if he isn't there, because it's Sam. Something _always_ happens. She smiles, bats her eyelashes and trouble ensues. But Ed said no. He said that _he_ would handle it, that he didn't need _him_ and Danny, angry but obedient, stepped back. He glared at Sam, at her challenging face so that she could see how mad he was at her. He was worried but mostly, strongly, he was furious and the last thing he told her was "Don't be stupid" when all he wanted to say was "Don't die out there".

Then he left to get back a stupid horse when it was Sam who needed him. Now the horse is where it's supposed to be and Danny still hasn't heard from Ed. He sighs, and checks his phone again.

Mike looks at him. "I'm sure she's fine."

Silence.

"Ed would have called if she wasn't, Danny," Mike adds.

Danny nods because he knows Ed would have called if something went wrong, but still, the bad feeling in the pit of his stomach remains.

* * *

"Where is she?"

Ed thinks Danny looks half-stupid, half-unprofessional, with his hair all over the place, dirt on his pants and shirt and out of breath as if he ran his way up here. He keeps the thought to himself though.

"How's the horse?" he asks instead.

Danny's entire body tenses, Ed can see it, yet he chooses to ignore him. This is his office, and he doesn't appreciate when people barge into it like they own the place.

"Ed..."

"How is the horse?" he repeats.

Danny waits, counts to three, then says. "Horse's fine. Back to his owner. I did what you asked."

"Good. Now, sit down."

"I'm fine standing."

"Sit down."

Ed keeps glaring at him and Danny eventually yields. He has the feeling Ed wouldn't say anything to him if he didn't have his ass on the chair.

"Sam is fine," Ed tells him because that's what Danny needs to hear to stop being so tense and worried and bratty.

"Really?"

"Really," Ed confirms.

Danny lets out the breath that was crushing his lungs, the pit in this stomach is no longer tight, and his heart feels lighter. _Sam is fine_.

"What happened there?" Danny asks.

Ed leans back in his chair, crosses his arms and tells him everything. "…Nothing Sam couldn't handle. She's a tough girl. She can be stupid sometimes, stubborn on her good days, but today, today she was very brave," Ed isn't really smiling, but he isn't really _not_ smiling, he doesn't smile so often, but Danny can see the genuineness of his words. "I couldn't have been prouder."

That makes Danny smile a little.

"You told her that, right?" Danny asks, because he can picture Sam, he can see her, running a hand in her hair, being overwhelmed, being happy that Ed, of all the people, would be proud of her. "You told her you were proud of her?"

"I did."

"Good. 'Cause she thinks you don't like her, not like she's ever told me that, but well, I know her so yeah, that must have mean a lot to her."

"You're all my kids," Ed says as if it explains everything, and it does in a way because Danny nods. They're all his kids, but Sam, she's special, she's different. Mostly, she's difficult, acts tough, pretends not to care but one gentle word, one warm caress, and she would break like the little girl she kept safe and guarded inside her. She's the kind of kid that needs the most of love. Ed may not trust her entirely, he doesn't trust anyone completely, but he sincerely likes her.

"Why didn't you want me there? I could have helped," Danny says, his voice even. Yet, his tone sounds reproachful.

Ed isn't phased or surprised. He expected them from Danny, the reproach, the anger, he expected all of it. He knows Danny as if he made him himself.

"You would have got her hurt or worse, you would have got her killed," Ed says, looking at him dead in the eyes, daring him to interrupt or to contract him. "When it's about Mary, you're not objective, which is not great. I've told you before. But when it's about _her_ , about _Sam_ , Danny, you don't think straight, you don't think at all to be honest. Your common sense flies out of the widow and your emotions are all over the place when it comes to Sam," he pauses, and when he sees Danny's face, when he sees him look away, he knows he stroke a nerve. He knows he's right and Danny does too. "We both know you would have tried to play the hero, endangered the mission and _Sam_ in the process. I did what I thought was best for her."

Danny turns back to Ed and there's a flash of anger in his eyes. He doesn't like what Ed is implying, as if he would deliberately put Sam in danger. "She could have died though. Even under _your_ watch."

Ed smirks. Danny has some guts.

"But she didn't. I got her out on time. She's fine," Ed repeats.

Danny stares hard at him. "I would have never forgiven you if something had happened to her."

"I know. That's the reason why I didn't let anything happened to her."

* * *

He knocks, once, twice and when she doesn't answer the door, he invites himself in. The door is closed, but he can see there's light in the bathroom.

When she walks out, feet wet and wrapped in her towel, she finds Danny sat on her bed, the bed they used to share. The sheets don't smell like him anymore.

If she's surprised to see him, she doesn't show it.

"Hey."

"Hey yourself," She feels like she should get dressed. He's looking at her so intensely that she feels naked and flustered. But she doesn't move. "What are you doing here?"

"I wanted to check up on you. To make sure you were okay."

She allows herself to smile. His concern is appreciated. "I am."

"Ed told me what happened there. How brave you were," he continues. "He's very proud... So am I."

"Thanks," she says and she means it. Then she tilts her head, glares at him. "You had me followed."

Danny remembers the look on her face when he told her. He had hurt her feelings. _Again_. He is getting good at this, as good as her. "I was just following orders. Nothing personal."

She doesn't look mad, or disappointed, or tense. Her face seems simply resigned. "Did you think I was..."

"No. I didn't."

His response is quick and not really convincing but she believes him all the same. She likes to think he really didn't think she would ever try to harm the Montecito and the people working there in any way. It's nice to have someone on her side for once. It doesn't happen often. She never lets it happen.

"Okay," she says and drops the topic.

It's awkward. He hasn't been in her room since they broke up, and now he's looking at her like _before_ , like nothing happened. He smiles at her, gently, softly, then pats the bed, waits for her to move. And Sam obliges, because it's _him_ , and sits next to him. They're not touching but the familiarity engulfs her nonetheless.

He feels warm. Like being home after a long, and harsh winter.

"You could have died today," he's stating the obvious but it feels nice having the words out. It's nice that she didn't die.

Sam has her hands on her lap and Danny notices she doesn't have her nails perfectly done, as if she had bitten them too much, too hard. He wonders if she was scared _there_. He is certain she would lie if he asked her.

"I know. I didn't though. Just like _you_ asked. _'Don't die out there',_ "He looks at her like she's crazy because he never actually said those words and she rolls her eyes at him. "You said it with your eyes. Your _angry_ eyes," she proceeds. "You were angry and all you said to me was _'Don't be stupid'_ which I am _never_ ," she said with a frown, "but I know you enough to decipher your coded messages. So no dying today like you asked. I'm fine, McCoy."

Out of habit, his fingers come up to caress the skin of her face and brush the crease off the forehead. "Promise?"

"Sure thing. Not the first time I see people get shot and die."

She realizes that was the wrong thing to say when he sighs, his fingers leaving her face. "Sam..."

"Sorry. Bad joke. But I'm fine. Don't worry about me," she tries to smile but it looks too fake even for her. She's tired. She's seen enough dead people for a lifetime or two.

"I always worry about you."

"Then don't. I'm okay."

She gets up to move away from him but he grabs her arm and forces her to turn around. Now she's right in front him, looking down at him, her mouth half open, her eyes big and bright. She's missed him. She sees him every day, yet, he's not really her Danny when he's working. He's not really her Danny anymore.

"You shouldn't be here, McCoy."

"I shouldn't," he confirms with a smile. "You're married."

"Yeah. But I don't really care."

That makes him laugh. "I've noticed, Marquez."

It's her turn to smile triumphantly, brilliantly, as if she's won. "Danny?"

"Hm?"

"Do you miss me? Us? I miss us."

They say that people who love each other, they end up thinking about each other at the same time, that their thoughts meet, and intertwine, and blend together. Often Danny wonders if Sam ever thinks of him because he thinks about her quite often.

So he nods as an answer to her question, his hands grab at her hips, bringing her closer. "All the damn time."

So she leans down, her hair tingling his cheeks, and kisses him like never before.

* * *

xxx

Europe is great, and fun, and hot but internet sucks and it makes me want to cry.

But I miss home a little, a lot, like Danny misses Sam.


	30. The Past Is Present

When she sees _him_ , handsome, with shiny hair and bright teeth, it's like a very cold shower. She feels trapped, oppressed and she's certain that God is trying to punish her again.

All he does is smile, because that's what he does, he smiles with _that_ smile—the same he used to woo her in the past, to worm his way to her chilly heart and to get her say _yes_ to him forever—then he says her name, like it's his favorite word—it was at some point, he told her, she remembers even if she doesn't want to—and her ears tingle, her finger twitch and she wants to slap herself because he is making her heart beat way too fast, he is making her panic and she feels lame like she always does when he is breathing not far from her.

Her mind feels fuzzy, and her sight is blurred and in the end, all she does is faint right next to Nessa. Brilliant.

* * *

She spends the major part of the day running, hiding from the husband she has tried hard to forget, from the husband she is trying hard to avoid.

She can run, she can hide but he is here, in her mind, in all her thoughts. _Casey, Casey, Casey_.

She curses, and lets her hand run tensely in her hair. When her phones rings, and she checks the caller; she curses again.

 _Danny._

Then, she curses again for good measure and she refuses his call.

* * *

"How come you ran away from that yummy husband of yours, Sam?"

Sam hates riding elevators with Nessa because she asks questions, not that she doesn't ask when they're not in elevators, but Nessa seems to have noticed how Sam dodges questions whenever there's an audience, so she seems to think that some alone time with Sam would help her get some answers out of her.

She's wrong.

"I mean, look at him, Sam," Nessa continues. "Anyone would want him, and no one in their right and sane mind would leave that man, not that you have a sane mind. You're totally mad, I've told you that. And you leaving that husband of yours totally comforts me in my opinion. You were totally out of your mind when you left him, honest."

"I've been trying to divorce him for years," Sam says dismissively, her face glued to her phone, fingers moving fast on the keyboard. "If you want him, you can have him."

* * *

When she left on _that nigh_ t, after months of blissful happiness and love, he ceased to exist for her. At first it was a _slow_ , agonizing act, until she toughened up and started pretending she had no heart and no love to share or waste, and from then it was _all at once_. Casey was nothing anymore. Just a tiny dust in the large mess that was her life.

Sometimes memories would cloud her days, stain her mood and she would sleep on them, red wine on her lips, deep in her stomach and she would throw up feelings and bad alcohol in the mornings.

Most of the days she was fine though.

Because she never allowed her to miss him, not even a little. She left him, and she deserved the pain and the heartache.

She acted like Casey never existed and it all worked just fine, until it didn't anymore.

* * *

Danny is calling again, and she picks up, _finally_ , because she didn't tell him she was married right away so she may learn from her mistakes, and do things right this time around.

"Hey Danny."

"Sam! Goddamn it! I've been trying to call you for hours."

"I know."

"I know _you_ know," he says, sarcasm coming across the phone. "You've been ignoring my calls. Delinda said you were busy with your client, she said things didn't turn out the way you wanted—,"

Sam sighs, her fingers massaging her eyes. Casey's arrival has given her headaches and they're getting worse by the minute.

"Sam?"

"Hmm?"

"Is everything alright with your client? Do you want me to come? Mary can totally solve this horse problem by herself… Just say the word and I'm freeing you from your whale."

Sam has told Danny how some clients can become too demanding, too clingy, or too _touchy,_ either when they're sober because they're asshole or once they've drunk too much because they're asshole that cannot handle their liquor, and in those cases, they are awful to get rid of. Danny knows that, he's seen it, he's saved Sam from time to time and Sam knows Danny wants to help, wants to play the knight in shining armor. He's cute when he acts all protective over her, but it's him, it's his heart that should be protected from her.

"Sam? What's wrong? Talk to me."

"The client I had to take care of today isn't just a client—" Sam starts.

"Who is he then?" Danny asks, and Sam can hear him getting impatient, and antsy. "Sam?"

"—The client is my husband."

There, the bomb is dropped.

She waits one, two, three seconds, before asking. "Danny?"

Silence.

"…Danny, I swear I didn't know he was coming. If I knew I would have—"

"Run away?" he cuts her off and she's too tired to call him out on his rudeness even if he's right. "What does he want?"

"Dunno. I haven't talked to him. I've been actively avoiding him."

He sighs. "Okay."

"Danny…"

"I gotta go. I'll talk to you later, okay," he says and Sam hates that he is rushing the phone call because he doesn't want to speak to her.

She doesn't say anything, and hangs up before he does because she already has one man driving her up the wall today, she doesn't need another one.

* * *

When she thinks she's done with avoiding him, he's done running after her, he has her cornered against a wall. It almost feels like before, when he was oxygen, and she was fire. But now the whole scene which they're key players of seems forced and unnatural.

"Hi, Sam," he says as greeting and she glares at him, annoyed that he found her so easy, annoyed that she let him find her so easy. Cause it's always been like that, it's always been a game. She always runs, he always chases, and in the end, she always lets him win, because that's what they do and seven years apart don't break reflexes.

It's all pretending.

"What are you doing here, Casey?"

His fingers are toying with a strand of her hair. Habits die hard, she thinks. Calloused fingers caressing the edge of her ear. Eyes soft, hesitant, hopeful even. He still loves her hair, and Sam doesn't want to know if he still loves her. She knows.

"Paying a visit to my wife," he admits, his dark eyes scrutinizing each of her movement, how her eyelashes move, how her lips twitch, how her eyes darken. "I've missed you."

Tentatively, his mouth leans in to brush hers, and she moves her face before it gets any further. He smells the same; like cigar, and channel perfume. The one she picked for him years ago. That fragrance wouldn't suit Danny, and the thought has her smirking which Casey mistakes for something related to him.

"I know you missed me too," Casey adds, and he takes a step back to allow her to leave if she wants to. She doesn't.

"You've always been overconfident," she says, arms crossed and Casey chuckles, biting his lip as his hands come to rest in his pockets. She had said some same words years ago.

She's not lying, she didn't miss him, not really.

It's hard to miss someone when the person is not around and Casey hasn't been around her a lot because she left like a thief, left him like the love and the wedding never happened. Her rings still fairly bright and lost in the bottom of a jewelry box, hidden in a suitcase that she never opens but always takes with her.

"I want you back, Sam."

"And I want you to leave."

"You're my wife," he replies. "I can't stop loving you just because you asked."

"It's been years. Get over it," she knows she is being cruel with her words, insensitive, and heartless but she can't help it. She is the hard one, he's the soft one. "Sign the papers."

"We were happy," he says instead, ignoring her request once more, it's become a routine between them. Meeting up every few years, her asking for a divorce, him refusing with a tender smile, her getting mad, him kissing her, "We were happy and in love and it doesn't go away just because you want it."

But it did, in some disturbing, heartbreaking way, it did. She made it go away, in a soul shattering moment, in the silence of an already dead night, she carefully took his arm off her waist, soundlessly tiptoed across the room, and secretly left the room, forever. She left him, him who was sleeping fast and safe in the warmth of their bed.

She didn't even say goodbye. The worst part is that she would do it all over again in a heartbeat.

"Leave me alone, Casey. Honestly, it's getting annoying. It's been seven years, you know, get over it or let it pass. Whatever, move on because I _have_."

"Sam..." he reaches out, wants to grasp her arm, needs to feel her skin, to have near him but she doesn't want to.

She takes a step back, "Leave me alone—," she repeats, "Just go away—" she's not watching where she's going, and her back bumps into something, into someone, and then there's a hand on the small on her back, sliding on her slim waist, and she doesn't need to turn around to know who that is.

"Is everything alright here?" he asks as he moves to stand next to her, fingers still lingering on her hips, shoulders still touching her skin.

"Yeah," she says, her eyes not looking away from Casey. "Everything's fine."

She noticed how Danny's body is pressed against hers, but she doesn't comment on it. Casey must have noticed too because he's no longer relaxed, his face is tense, his stance defensive, like he always is when something displeasing is happening right under his nose. Those are facts, she can rattle off facts about him because she knows him. That's what happens when you know someone, when you love someone. She picked up his habits, anticipates his reactions whether or not she wants to admit it, they know each other. She knows him and he knows her

"Casey was just leaving," Sam says after a few seconds of tensed silence and intense glaring, and her hand grips Danny's arm hard, tugging him away from here, away from Casey but Danny doesn't move, doesn't even look at her.

"Sam," Casey's voice is pleading, begging even and Sam doesn't have the energy to deal with that right now.

"Casey," she says, and it comes out as a warning.

Casey takes a step towards her and so Danny places himself in front her, as if to protect her, to shield her from Casey. This would have made her laugh. Casey would never hurt her. She is the one who does the hurting, Danny could ask, she hurt him. She hurt them both. Poor boys loving the wrong girl, or maybe it's the other way around.

"Move away from my wife."

"No."

"No?" Casey repeats, incredulity in the tone of his voice. "Who the hell do you think you are?" Casey spats, looking Danny dead in the eyes.

"I'm Danny McCoy," he says, holding his hand, smiling all suddenly, and the coldness that emanates from his smile has her turn away. "I'm Sam's boyfriend,".

Casey doesn't blink, doesn't shake his hand. All he says is "Oh."

And Sam supposes that's her clue to leave.

* * *

xxx

Hola, I did a lot of traveling, a lot moving, and I kinda forgot this story, plus I don't always have internet, so yeah, updates gonna be less frequent, sorry.

Lemme know if anyone is still reading, if not, I won't worry about long hiatus or irregular updates.


	31. In Vino Veritas

Danny doesn't know what to make of _Casey_.

He seems like an okay guy—okay enough not to punch him square in the jaw, okay enough to act _politely_ towards a man who introduced himself as _his_ wife's boyfriend, okay enough to buy him a drink. Danny said no, of course he did, but Casey insisted with a tight smile, a harsh slap on his back and he reluctantly agreed, led the way to the bar, uncertain of how this was going to unfold.

And when Casey sat and asked for some _refined_ red wine, Danny silently cringed. Figures, aside from their marriage, Sam and Casey also share the same taste in fancy alcohol. _Fantastic._

Casey is sipping at his drink when he says, "So you and Sam, hm?" his eyebrows are raised, his tone mocking, faint smirk on his face and Danny can't help but feel like the tables have turned, that _Casey_ now has the upper hand.

"Yeah. No. I mean we _weren't_ at first, but then we _were_ and until we _weren't_ again—we're not, not anymore," Danny awkwardly explains but he doesn't really want to explain, doesn't want to tell Casey about his relationship with Sam. That's _their_ story, when there was still a them, it belongs to them, to _him_ , even if _she_ does not.

"You said you were her boyfriend. You lied," Casey points out, no hint of accusation of his tone, as if being lied to seems to be a regular occurrence in his life. It must be. After all, Sam was in his life at some point, still is to some extent. The invisible line of their marriage that connects them, that links them, _it_ still exists, even if she pretends she cut it off years ago. "Why?"

Danny shrugs. "I've hung around Sam way too much I guess."

It's meant as a joke, a _bad_ one sure, but it holds so much truth that his liquor smells and tastes like bitterness now. Sam lies, often, all the times. She has lies on her tongue, on her lips and whenever he kisses her skin, Danny swears there is nothing real about Sam; just plain artifices and empty truth.

Casey nods because Danny's words make sense. Sam makes lying so easy, hurtful, painful yes—but so easy.

He finishes up his last drink and sets the empty glass down a bit too abruptly, a bit too loudly and now there's a crack on the surface. How symbolical, Danny thinks sourly. One could think Casey and Sam, handsome and beautiful together, would embody perfectness and harmony, but the cracks are here, the failures are present, Sam made sure of that.

"She didn't tell you that she was married, did she?"

Danny's silence confirms Casey's suspicion, and if he hadn't been fooling around with his wife Casey would have felt sorry for him.

"This is the problem with Sam," he says. "She isn't a bad person, quite the contrary actually and when she lets you in _long_ enough, _deep_ enough you can see how beautiful her true self is. However, at the end of day, Sam is very selfish. See here: she gets the husband, the boyfriend-no-longer-boyfriend and the happiness, and what do we get? Half truths, full lies and tons of heartbreaks—" he sighs, and Danny wants to disagree. He was happy, still happy when he closes his eyes tight enough and claims Sam as _his_ , forever, behind closed doors and in the sheets. But when reality strikes back, and he remembers she lied to him, then he's mad all over again and it's pain that swallows his happiness and spits on his heart. "But it's alright, because it's Sam. That woman is worth all the misery in the world, right?"

Danny isn't sure how to answer, so he doesn't and instead asks. "What happened between you two? Why did she leave?"

The question is innocent, logic, but Casey can't hide the smirk anymore. "Let's just say I wasn't who she thought I was. I hadn't been totally honest with her." Danny waits for him to continue, and Casey finally drops the act and even seems a little apologetic when he adds, "In other words, _I played her_."

 _Like she played you_. That's what Casey doesn't say, but Danny heard it loud and clear.


End file.
